Can I Keep It?

Boudreaux Gardens

Dis whut Bou fink of fowlers.

Bou rain on dem for yew.  Help grow.  Make preety.

Yewr welcome.

Gratuitous Shot of Simone

Mommy's little helper...

Sprung

A few days ago, I headed out to the garden to do some weeding with the kids.  As I left the door and waited for them to follow, I realized that the wisteria arbor above my head was issuing a low huuuuuummmm.

Spring had errupted in my yard.  The kids set about to chasing drunken bees.

 

Over night, the arbors over the patio and at the end of the pool, look as if they are cover by a thick lavendar chenille spread.

My favorite time of the year snuck up on me.

NotMe,Mommee.IHeardDemPrickleeJerksFromInsideTheHowse!

Mon Petit Chou

Today was lovely.  A soft warm breeze, slightly overcast, quiet. Finally spring-like!

Hud and I started planting the garden yesterday, so today, the kids and I soldiered on without him.

We weeded the bed in front of the Shicken.  Simone was of great assisstance. 

You could probably tell from the dirt in her ruff that she is quite handy at hole digging.  In fact, she majored in it as a undergrad.

Boudreaux was...Boudreaux.  He splashed across the pool cover, leapt over brick walls and fencing, around the backyard, under the azaleas, over the pool deck and into the garden with a crashing stop at my hunched over body. 

Bou hab eggsellent adbenture. Gardening pffun.

It was all going very well until I turned to ask Zali how he was getting along with the weeding and discovered that he had dug up one of my newly planted cabbages!  He had chomped it down to the roots.

Whut? Eet wuz zee qualitee cuntroll, Muhzer!

Now, I knew he and Simone could not be trusted with broccoli, but cabbages?!?! Le sigh. He looks remorseful, but I had to stop him from murdering the rest of the crop, the little buggar.  That's the look of a guilty man, not a sorry one.  No wait. Guilty and sorry. That's more like it.

Time of death - 10:39.  Farewell, mon petit chou.  I hardly knew ye. 

Bou and Simone took the death seriously and decided to be on their best behavior for the remainder of the outing. Zali went up to the house, pouting.  He stayed by the back door yipping to go in.  Seems I had spoiled all his fun.  

I finished planting cucumbers, beets, bush beans and Thai eggplant.  The three of us joined him at the door when it was time to start making lunch.

A very fine spring morning, inspite of the carnage.

 

 

Change is in the Air

Last Friday, the winds blew in a change in the weather. We awoke to temperatures in the eighties.  A full twenty degrees cooler than the average around here.  

The kids were frisky.  It hasn't been this lovely in months.  Boudreaux was all smiles.

Zoe felt better than ever.  She even insisted on going to the park with Hud and Boudreaux.

Zali wanted to go for a walk, but he settled for chasing Bou and Simone around the backyard.

Hud came out to enjoy the day, but he was so into the book, Gone Girl, that he hardly noticed it.

The toad lilies are blooming brightly after the storms.

All of the yard was heaving a sigh.  The drought is lifted.

AhThinkItSuks.It'sGettingMyBeautifulFurWet.StupitWain.

Mommy's Little Helpers

Every day we like to go out to the vegetable garden and weed for about an hour. 

Bou help. Dig plants.  Mommy want Bou go in pool now?

Oy.  Boudreaux likes to take naps on the freshly weeded beds.  He has absolutely no sense of personal space.  Even less for crushing plants.

The weather's been so warm, the blackberries, peppers, cucumbers and beans have already begun to produce.  We've eaten at least ten tomatoes.  I plucked two more off today.

The eggplants have just begun to flower.  We caged them to keep them from softening Boudreaux's naps.  But the herbs are Simone's favorite place to play.  Rosemary is scratchy but the thyme is soft as a cloud, according to her.

WhatDoYouMeanYouEatThatCwap?

I never thought I'd like to hear myself say phrases like, "Boudreaux! You can't sleep on an eggplant!" Or, "Dogs don't eat marigolds!" Much less the timeless, "How many times do I have to tell you to stop jumping over me in the garden?"

Seriously.  Boudreaux has mad skills.  He's like an exotic black deer set loose in the backyard.  We have a brick wall between the driveway and the pool deck.  It's about four and a half feet on the car side and three feet tall on the pool side.  I'm walking back in when I notice his running feet coming in my direction.  I look up to see him leap the  wall, perch on top of the one brick wide decoration and gently land on the decking.  So jumping , Simone, Me or Zoe is hardly a test of his agility.

Le Sigh.

Season to Taste

That's it.  We've officially turned the page on autumn.  The pool was put to sleep this morning.  We had one last beautiful weekend with it.

And now we'll plant the fall vegetables and pansies.  The air is already changing.  The windows are open.  The vernal equinox has passed.  Everything's changing.

One more bit of our past behind us.

Questionable Offerings

Zoe has been hard at work in the office.  Filing reports.  Interviewing interns.  Making phone calls.

 
Okay, I may have caught her napping.  But she works so hard! 

Or, you know, not. 

Simone even went up to her to make sure she's still breathing.  To everyone's relief, she was.

Zoe's office is the Booze Hound Bar and Grill on our sun porch.  When we were vacationing in Rhode Island one year to see the mansions and visit Green Animals, we stayed at a B&B.  It was a lovely old gingerbread  Victorian.  I enjoyed strolling throughout the many parlors and hallways, beautifully restored with intricately layered William Morris wallpapers. In the corner of the elegant dining room was an exotic plant.  The likes of which I'd never seen.  At breakfast, I queried the hostess as to it's name and origin. 

*That's a Sharron Barrett Plant Friend sticking out of the top.  And a watering ball from my friend, Tatia Johnson. And a bunny cling from the side from my mother.  Hoarders?  No.  We're collectors.

She blushed.  The plant was the ill gotten gain of her husband on a trip to Monticello.  When he wasn't you know, writing constitutions or being President, Jefferson was a horticulturalist.  He collected plants all over the world and brought them back to his greenhouses in Virginia to propagate.  This was a snippet of one of those treasures.

She asked me if I'd like a piece to take home. And gave me a cutting as we left to catch our plane.  I guess she thought if I became a co-conspiritor that I wouldn't turn her over to authorities.

We just call it the Monticello plant.  Or the Jefferson plant.  It's easy to grow.  Likes bright indirect sunlight and water once a week.  No food.  It blooms several times a year.  And in the years we have had it, it has grown all the way from a four inch trimming to the floor.  It has started to snake its way under Zoe's, er, "desk". 

So we, in turn, have been cutting it off and giving it away to friends.

 

 

And this is also hanging from it.  Because it needs lots of things to amuse it.  That's the only downfall of the plant apparently.

Our friend, Keith Renard gave the Lollypop Baby to us years ago.  He's getting married this November.  last week, we gave them a potted piece of the Monticello plant. 

Stollen property from a landmark estate.  Isn't that what Martha Stuart says in her wedding magazine is the perfect gift for the bride to be?

 

Hold Over

It's hard to believe, but our tomatoes are still covered in fruit. 

 

We've only had late season tomato luck with the free range cherry tomatoes by the driveway.  These are heirlooms.  One of them has over forty green fruits on the plant.  It's astonishing. 

And I've just about completely neglected them lately.  Fresh ripe tomatoes in September.  What are the odds of that?

 

IIIIII'mmmm NAKED!

I know I've told you about my grandmother traumatizing me in my thirties by springing from the bathroom, soaking wet and singing, "I'm naked!" Right?

The horror.

So every summer, around August, you can here me crooning, "I'm NAKED!" as I stroll through the naked ladies.  I've told you we live next to a church.  Right?

There are great stands of them congregating about the yard.  But I admire the way this one has cloaked herself in a blanket of daisies.  So modest.  See how she blushes?

Yes, she's complementing the tomatoes.  Much like this fellow:

The gardens are a daily surprise.