Punk Gardener

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Time To Mothball The Butterball!

We had a few. Not enough to make a dent in our drought.
Anyone else starting to wonder if the Hill Country might start looking more like West Texas desert if this keeps up?
I’m planting trees all around the house & getting rain barrels next Spring. We’ve also been talking about drip irrigation instillation.
Creating water conservative micro climates is the meme du jour around here lately.
So, fellow CenTex, gardeners– what are your plans, if any, in dealing with all this dry?

We looked for The Happy Vegan Baker & Ararat who we thought would be there, but couldn’t find them so we just bought ourselves some local hot sauce & rocked out with a pretty good cover band (the members of which seemed to be about 14 years old).

Then we just wandered down Pecan St. for a bit til we came to a small, scrubby graveyard that we explored. The dates on the graves went back to the turn of the previous century, & this close to Dia de los Muertos, the graves still had flowers & children’s toys on them (the names of the graves were all of Hispanic origin). Too many of the graves belonged to infants & I was struck by how humans create beautiful rituals to help the process of mourning– creating something lovely to cope with grief, what an interesting species we are.

one I’m thankful to live to see.

Yesterday, there were cookouts.The picnic area was decorated & the kids were whacking hard on piñatas for the Day of the Dead celebration.
 Fall has come & today I took some shots of my Red Oaks & Bradford Pears from around my park:

I’m listening to *This American Life* as I clean. I like the show, really I do, but there’s a tendency to a certain… shall I say *citified* view of the world that occasionally just torques me — see here for an example:

http://www.punkgardener.com/archives/118

& they’ve done it to me again with the Halloween 08 show which has an interview with a woman attacked by a rabid coon.
I feel for the woman & I think she handled it pretty well over all, but I just had to sigh when she said she suddenly felt at risk in what had been her bucolic idyllic home that she bought to escape city life, that she felt “betrayed by nature”.
Betrayed by nature?
Ok– all feelings are valid in the realm of emotion, but seriously- no one is betrayed by nature.
For betrayal, one would have to have a personal relationship with nature, some agreement of mutual concern- capice?
Let me put it plain:
Nature does not give two shakes about us.
Now it’s in our best interest to care about nature, because y’know, as the Tick says “that’s where we keep all our stuff” & because it is actually good for our hearts & minds to engage with nature.
But seriously– joggers in the CA mountains get attacked by pumas, people in P-ville have coyotes snatch their cats, & rabid raccoons charge weekend woods strollers.
Also–people die slipping in the shower & every time you get on I35 you are taking a hell of a risk.
Life is dangerous.
Hope for the best , be prepared for the worst & be grateful for what you get.
(& on the issue of being prepared– sure carry a cell in the woods, but better yet carry a walking stick. Rabid animals will often attack on sight & viciously, pain does not deter them & being critters they can often outrun & outclimb you.)

& some of our neighbors really go all out for Halloween!

& did I mention one of my neighbors has a goat tied to their house? Give it up for East Austin, y’all