I declared Spring this year in early February during a nice patch of weather. I just really wanted to move the plants outside that I had lined up in weird places by windows in the kitchen, bathrooms, and my bedroom. I hate winter, for one thing, and then I just was impatient about it all.
Now I’m blaming the plants for losing all their leaves and appearing to be dead. Shouldn’t they be able to handle a few light frosts? I feel like now that damage is done they’ll just have to stick it out (we are currently in one more, probably last, winter blast). I do believe a couple of plants will revive but no doubt I killed most of them. I don’t know why I get so impatient. Two of them were plants I started from seeds: pineapple and avocado. The pineapple was doing really well, so I hope I can start up another one.
The frogs around here, on the other hand, know how to deal with winter. A few days ago I recorded what sounded like frogs. But frogs when there are still below freezing temps? Yep, the audio was identified as Strecker’s Chorus Frogs (via iNaturalist). Apparently this is their most active part of the year!
Trail cam activity has lessened over winter. Fox was steady but otherwise just the usual rabbits and deer. But just in the last few days we see more including skunk and armadillos!
Check out this picture of Pangea…photobombed by a ladybug!
Other than that, we’ve been busy not doing anything to avoid omicron. Austin is still in Stage 5, but finally we seem to have reached peak so it should start to get better. We just saw our friends, Regi & Sean, at their place last night. It’s been literally months since we last saw them! Other than that, I’ve done a handful of “projects” to amuse myself.
Inspired by the Olympics, I built Pangea a cardboard maze. I placed her favorite foods at the finish line. Unfortunately, she barely moved and when she did, she hid in the nearest corner. Sulcatas don’t like change so if she’s ever gonna do the maze I’m going to have to make it part of the routine.
I have a pile of wood-like pieces and so I took one and painted on it hoping to do a mockery of the “live laugh love” crap. But it was poorly executed and just isn’t funny at all. I also made a few more things with eggshells and probably will do more of those in the future.
I thought I could make it funny :(
I’ve also purchased an on-line class in botanical printmaking on paper. This is going to take time. Currently I’m assembling the necessary materials. If I can get it to work at all, I think it will be interesting as the woman who teaches the class lives in Australia, so she uses Eucalyptus leaves and other native plants, and so I’ll be using a totally different palette here in central Texas.
Finally, we have all three of the young hens laying at the same time! And Nessa’s still very much here, in fact she stares at me through the living room window in the morning, reminding me to come out and open the coop so she can eat breakfast!
I’ve already spotted the first wildflowers of the season and the redbud tree is just starting to bud, so spring is literally right around the corner.
More pics below.
