Author: admincatsg

We’ve been in our new place a couple of months now. Well, we’ve been in the house even though we took a two week vacation in between.

Now for how the new garden grows.

The new house had sod and a sprinkler system put in by the builder. Since the sprinkler system is on an automatic timer, we didn’t have to worry or think about watering. Or so we thought. We decided to put in a few plants in the back yard so we had to check out the watering system lines. In the process of doing that, we turned the watering system to manual and watered for 2 minutes a section. It was a learning experience.

Guess what! We have a water break we didn’t know about. If we hadn’t tested the system we wouldn’t know about this break. And its quite a break. But in the process we did manage to flag each sprinkler head. I took pictures of the where the flags are so I have a record of it should I need it later.

But at least we were able to put some of my old potted plants in the ground. We managed to get my meyer lemon tree, four roses, one peach, and a berry plant in. We also planted a plum, but I don’t remember what kind of plum it is. We do still have a couple of pots to get in. And since they’re in the ground they get watered by the sprinklers.

I was able to pick up a charcoal smoker grill. We put it up on the patio, which may not have been the best place. I use a chimney starter and I’ve found that it makes the patio very smoky. I’m thinking I may need to expand the patio and make an area I can put the grill. I’m using the grill nonetheless.

Some of the other plants we have are still in pots. Since they are herbs, tomatoes, sorrel, and a few other plants, I haven’t put them in the ground. I may want to build some sort of raised bed for vegetables. If I can get that done soon I can get a late season of veggies. We’ll see if I can get that done.

We got a day of rain, and we got 1.85 inches of rain. The plants are happy, everything is green, the grass is looking great – rain came in handy. The plants are so happy and growing, and loving their rain.

Now the bad news. We have more rain on its way next week. At this point the rain water storage tanks are full. So full that when I went to transfer water into them the water ended up flow out the top. And yet we have more rain on the way.

Right now the forecast says next Tuesday rain begins. Then it lasts for the 4-5 days following that. Of course, the chance is 50% for the entire time so who knows what we will get for rain.

We will wait and see what the weather brings.

Who knows what is going on with Texas weather. We have yet another storm due, tonight and probably tomorrow. The good news is by Thursday, today is Tuesday, the storm should be gone. But they’ve already issued flash flood warnings for the area. It does look like a strong storm line, and most of it will be north of us. It looks like Dallas and the Fort Worth area will get hit harder.

Our weather forecast says some of the thunder storms could be severe. But we’ll see what happens and who get that weather. We might, but then who knows.

On a different note, never be afraid of trying to grow from seed. I had put some seeds from an orange into a pot. Now you need to understand that this was not a grocery store orange. It was from a “home grown”, someone’s back yard orange tree. I put them in a pot on the patio probably last month. Well, I now have about 6 new small plants coming up. It looks like a lot of those little orange seeds have sprouted. It will be years before they produce, but nonetheless they have sprouted and I have seedlings. I will do my best to keep them alive and growing. I’ll keep you posted on how they are doing.

Rain, blowing rain, thunder, lightning, and if you’re in a different area of Texas, tornadoes. Its a weather wild ride. Yesterday was lovely, nice weather comfortable, high of 80.

As of right now (almost noon), Travis county has a severe thunderstorm watch until 3pm. Even though I’m in Hays, Travis county line is less than a mile from here.

As a side note, I took our puppies (boys) outside for their potty break during a rain break. Our tv dish has lost a part. I’ll keep that part safe and sound, but its actually blown so hart a part came down. We’ve had wind gusts up to 30 mph.

But the good news is most of the storm is well north of us. So that’s nice. And we won’t be looking at this storm for much longer today. It should be gone within a couple of hours. But if you are north of Austin, you probably will have this storm for a while. And the radar looks like areas in Mississippi and Louisiana will be dealing with this for a while.

But we still need the rain.

For the past two days we’ve had rain. Nothing fancy, just bouts of rain. We’ve had just about 3/4 inches today, and had about 1/2 inches yesterday. So not a lot of rain, but a nice rain. And we’ve needed it.

Its also left us cooler. Today was all of 67 degrees. But in good old Texas fashion, tomorrow is supposed to be 83.

Yup, gotta love Texas weather.

What can you say about Texas weather? I’m not sure fickle quick describes it well enough. Temperamental, capricious, erratic might be good descriptions. In the space of one week we went from a low of 23 to a high of 82 (almost 83). And we’ve stayed at some warm temperatures since.

They warned us about a storm coming in the other night. Some storm! They warned of severe thunderstorms that were to last through the night. None of it happened. We got a light rain that gave us all of 0.20 inches of rain. It was a big to-do about nothing.

But now we are scheduled to be moderate, mid/upper 50’s to upper 60’s during the day, with the evenings in the mid 40’s.

Quite ironically I had put in seed just before the cold snap of last week. Some of the seed attempted to sprout, but not much of it. The little sprouts froze and died in the cold. Since we’ve begun having moderate temperatures what seed didn’t sprout before, has begun sprouting. Just for fun I put in additional seed to make sure something will sprout. Even though we still plan to move, I figure the new owners might enjoy a decent harvest. If it takes us longer to move out than expected, maybe I’ll enjoy the harvest.

We’ll see what happens.

We hit a low of 23 last night. That’s cold. Today we should warm up to mid 40’s, and get below freezing again tonight. Hopefully tonight will be more like 28, not 23. But we are in for another cold night again.

Tomorrow should be a high of 56 and a low of 47. If that happens the cold from will have moved on. Let’s hope it does.

We hit a low last night of 25 degrees. Today we got to a high of 35. Yes we warmed up by ten degrees, but it still rates as cold. And tonight we are supposed to get even colder. Tomorrow night we will be warmer, just below freezing. But at least Wednesday high should be in the 40’s.

But by weekend, granted a few days away, it’s supposed to get into the mid-70’s. Quite a temperature difference from where we are now. But this is the way of Texas weather. Though, who’s to say if this is normal or just an oddball weather pattern.

But because the weather affects my asthma, I have been staying in during this cold spell. Its grey outside, with flat clouds, no real wind to speak of as I look outside right now. But it is cold. Good weather for hot soup.

Its almost 8pm and the cold is coming. We did hit a high of 44.6 and we are already down to 35. We are heading down to 28 tonight. Tomorrow night is may get down to 27, with a low of 29 the following night.

And of course by Wednesday we could get back up to 52 during the day, with a possible 70 the following day. So it looks like a short lived cold spell. Hopefully its the last cold spell we should expect. Its a bit late for this kind of cold, but then again climate change is change, even if you don’t have any idea what to go with.

I’ll keep you posted with this weather.