Summer's Here -- A Bit Early

Well, summer's officially here in Central Texas. The temps broke 90 deg F, and I broke down and turned on the air conditioners. Bye-bye $56 electric bills. It'll be interesting to see what the bills are, actually. The window units will be on some times during the day, but I've still got all the lights switched over to compact flourescents and I got rid of the television months ago. I was shocked by how much my electric bill fell once I got rid of that power hog; if you must have one, definitely put it on surge supressor and turn off the power when the set is off. You'll have to wait a couple of minutes for the unit to warm up, but the cut in power consumption is definitely worth it.

I haven't done much in the garden the last couple of weeks, and I'm afraid it shows. There's plenty of weeding to do this long weekend. I started it this morning, but will have to wait for cooler temps this evening to do any more. My Homestead Yellow day lily started blooming a week or so ago, and the red and double red varieties were close behind it. The little pink scented one hasn't even set a bud, but the leaves look nice and healthy. I wish I could say the same for the fancy dark blue Agapanthus I ordered. The medium blue varieties are setting new leaves, but the dark blue one is barely hanging on. Sadly, I'm afraid we may be too hot and dry for it. There won't be much I can do to help it, either. We're already on water restriction for the summer.

Weekend before last, I spent building some book shelves in my workroom/ library. I've been looking for bookcases that I can afford, but apparently all I can afford is cheap and ugly, so I went down to Home Depot and bought some 1x12 #2 pine lumber, which they cut to the necessary length, and some steel shelf brackets and a cross-check level. I painted the wall where I wanted the shelves, attached the brackets, painted them the same color as the walls and attached the shelves. Here are the results. Not bad if I do say so myself. I just need to paint the shelves themselves and add more on the other side of the window and over the top.

Finally, week before last I spent volunteering at the 2008 Mississippian Iconography Workshop, and annual event at Texas State University, hosted by the Center for the Arts and Symbolism in Ancient America. This was my second year as a volunteer. It's an invaluable opportunity for students to meet and watch some of the leaders in our field working. It was great fun, as always, and I finally got up the nerve to talk to one of the professors about his university's graduate program. He was encouraging and offered to read my statement of purpose before I submit it, for which I'm very grateful. The Cahokia Mother and Child Pipe is Mississippian, but really has nothing to do with what we were doing, I just like the photo and needed a way to get Blogger to acknowledge the new paragraph. It's made from bauxite and was found in Madison County, IL.

I apologize for the formatting. For some reason, Blogger has chosen to ignore any and all paragraph separations in this post, no matter how many times I reformat. Sigh.

A Lazy, Rainy Day

This morning started with the thunderstorms the weather reports had promised, but it's settling into one of those drippy days -- not enough rain to keep me indoors, but too much to allow me to really do anything once I get outside. So, I think this last day of my three-day weekend will be a lazy one. The cat in the photo to the right is Oliver. He insisted on going out last night at midnight and just came back in, all drippy.

I did get some things accomplished this weekend. Another of the poor cottoneasters that drowned in last year's rainy summer has been pulled out, and the others have been cut back to their bare skeletons. They'll be easy enough to dig out as time goes on.

One of them won't be able to come out, though. There's a volunteer native bi-color lantana that's grown up alongside it's trunk, and I won't be able to dig out the cottoneaster without digging up the lantana as well. Oddly, the lantana complements my Patchwork wallflowers almost perfectly. Serendipity in the garden, I suppose. Assuming it doesn't grow out of bounds and eat the wallflowers, that is.

I moved one of the daylilies, too. I didn't realize it was so much shorter than the others when I bought it and planted it too close to a much larger daylily; it's been moved to the front of the bed where it can be seen once it decides to bloom for me.

As you can see from the pictures attached to this post, I also got some painting done in the kitchen. (For those who don't know, it used to be this sort of dingy peach color.) It's not completely finished, but it's getting there. Only the half-wall behind the stove and refrigerator is left. No, I don't plan to pull the refrigerator and stove out to do the entire wall. Call me lazy, if you wish. There are also the bits around the ceiling that I just can't reach, even from a chair. I'm hoping that my daughter's boyfriend can be imposed upon to aid the vertically challenged.


So, now my plans for the day are to drink hot tea, make some nice, low fat turkey chili for my dinners at work for the rest of the week, bake that butternut squash in the veggie bowl, and knit a new dishcloth. One of the ladies on my dishcloth list emailed a link to a blog called To Knit is Divine and a pattern called Diagonal Ripple Dishcloth. It's very pretty, and I can't wait to try it. The rest of Leanne's blog is also very interesting; I plan to return fairly frequently to see what she's up to.