More finds...and then some

We live on the out skirts of San Antonio just barely in the country so there's not too much close by around here. Recently we were going to lunch to near-by Castroville, a tiny town about 15 miles or so from us. We decided to go the "long" way on country roads and went through a strip of road that was almost a town. There was a general store and a few homes and that's it. Luckily for us they were having a neighborhood yard sale and we picked up some great finds for next to nothing. Everything shown above came out to $11.00!! My favorite is the Elsie cow creamer. And the roses have little clips on the back so you can clip them on just about anything to add a touch of romance.

This cement cherub was only $30.00 at Round Top earlier this year. Doesn't sound like a bargain unless you've been out pricing large garden statuary. He's about 1 foot long and is VERY heavy. I love how cute he looks tucked into the bushes.

Not exactly pertaining to the found category, though they did find us...

Are these beautiful and amazingly colored little birds. They're painted buntings that visit our area in summer. We found out that they love millet so, of course, we go running to the bird store (only 25 miles away) to buy this not-so-cheap seed in the hopes of attracting them. We were shocked that they found us by the next day!

They're pretty shy, so we couldn't get close to get pictures. These photos don't do them justice at all!! They're to bright and colorful. The females are a solid green color that come to the pond and are much braver than the males. What's funny is that I haven't seen the males at the pond where the females are, and the females don't go to the feeders. I feel so blessed to have these beautiful little birds visit my garden. God is always giving me little gifts of His creation and it always thrilling to me.

Hugs and smiles!

Patricia :o)

Flower Bird Cage

Have you ever made a purchase at a flea market or antique store and regretted it almost immediately? A few months ago I bought a bird cage and was so upset with myself because I didn't need it, didn't really want it and paid too much for it! I had one of those "Duh!" moments as soon as I put it in my car. I put it away and tried not to think about it.

Then...

I was lucky enough to find Joanne at Cottage in the Making's blog. On one of her posts, she had actually planted flowers in an old bird cage. What a great idea!! I asked her if she didn't mind if I "borrowed" her idea and she very graciously agreed. This is my version, but you really need to see hers. It's beautiful!


I started with my over-priced bird cage and bought some little flowers on sale. I lined the bottom of the cage with a piece of plastic from the bag that the dirt came in. Then I added the little flowers and a little cement bird.

I had the door open so you could see my bird better, but real birds got trapped inside. I felt so bad for them when they panicked and desperately tried to get out of the cage as I approached. I managed to get them out unharmed. Now I keep the little door closed and everyone stays happy.

It's been very hard lately to be motivated to be on the computer. I've been selling on eBay for five or six years and I think I'm a little burned out. I still have lots of stuff to sell, but I just can't seem to get to it. The problem is that I was on the computer for so many hours a day, that now I barely even read my emails and have neglected my blog and all of you. I'll try to do better...

Hugs,

Patricia :o)

Wildflowers

Last July, I posted about visiting Wild Seed Farm in Fredericksberg, TX. (Click here if you want to go back and see it) We got a little carried away while we were there and bought enough wildflower seeds to blanket our neighborhood. We thought all you had to do was throw the seeds down and they would grow. Yeah, we really thought that!!

Anyway, after reading the directions, we decided to do a much smaller area and see what happens. We put a ring of rocks around some trees, threw down some dirt - because we mostly have rocks in the backyard), the sowed the seeds according to the directions. It wasn't hard, but it was more prep work than we thought.


The seeds we planted were labeled Hummingbird and butterfly garden. They started sprouting almost right away. I was worried that they would freeze in winter and spring, but they've made it just fine. I think...

But all we got was a bunch of white flowers and a few purple flowers that stand up on tall, very thin stems. We have lots of butterflies and hummingbirds come through the yard, but they don't stop here.

Mostly they visit the plants around the pond. Which is fine with me as that's were you'll find me most of the time.

I didn't know that bees and butterflies would be attracted to calla lilies. Which in turn attract anoles. They are all so fun to watch.

This is Nala. How did she get in this post? She's always following me around, but she's getting old and lays down on the cool flag stones whenever she gets a chance and watches me to make sure I don't do anything fun that she'll miss out on.

Newly planted snap dragons. They're sooo pretty and always brighten up any garden or flower arrangement.

I love pansies because they're always smiling. I thought these would be spent by now as I've had them for a long time. But they're Johnny pop ups so they're always preforming. Love that!

Blessings,

Patricia :o)

Mystery Bird

One of the joys of my slowly developing garden are all the sweet little birds that come to visit. We get Cardinals, Lesser Yellow finches, American gold finch, wrens, woodpeckers, doves, etc. But there's one little guy we can't find in our bird book. He, (or maybe she) has all the markings of an American goldfinch except that his body is pure white! See him in the middle of the photo hiding behind the sock?



He's very shy, so it's hard to get a good picture of him. At first we though it was some kind of gold finch with a mutated gene that made his grayish feathers white. But then we saw TWO! Can they both be mutated?



He has a dusting of yellow on his head, black wing tips and then everything else is white. Snow white.

This is the best picture we got of him. My daughter got it through her bedroom window on the second floor. But it's not as clear as it could be because it's through the glass. Does anyone out there have any idea what this little guy is? Or, any idea where I can find out?

Blessings,

Patricia :o)

Tranquil Pond

I mentioned in my last post that we just put in a pond. This is something we've always wanted to do, but never had the space for in California. I wish we could have had a professional install it, but that was WAY out of the budge (by thousands of dollars!) So we decided to try it ourselves.

Here are Floyd (my hubby) and Cody (one of my doggies) outlining the shape, size and location of the pond. The ground here in my part of Texas is mostly rocks and rock slabs. So we decided to build the pond up rather than digging down.

We built a rock "retaining" wall up using stones we found, bought and dug up from the ground. Filled in the sides with purchased dirt, and laid the liner.

After we laid the liner, skimmer and water fall, we got a truck load of more rocks! It's amazing to me that with all the rocks around us, we had to buy more.

The preparation for the pond took many week-ends, but we built the liner, rocks and put in the water in one weekend. After about a week, we added plants and fish.

Finally finished! It was waaaaay hard to do. It was so labor intensive that I was only happy that we were done. I wasn't happy with the pond at all! However, that quickly changed now that the memory of the hard work is getting farther and farther away.

I've only had the pond for a short time, but we've already had so many stories revolving around it. I sit at the edge almost every day after my morning walk and do nothing except for feed the fish, watch the birds and spend quiet time with God.

Lots of easy to care for plants line the edges between the pond and the retaining wall.
Planted inside the pond and along the water's edge are calla lilies, miniature cat-tails and water lilies.

This is the back view of the rock wall on the path side. It's dry stacked and amazingly stable and strong with the dirt holding everything in place.

I almost forgot to include a photo of my fishies! We bought 14 little gold fish and two little koi thinking that most of them would not survive the "new" water. Not only did they all live, but they're growing fast! The two white ones are the koi that are named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.

I hope you enjoyed my pond-building adventure. There's still so much to tell you about our little bird, frog and snake friends who come around for a visit. But that will wait until later.

Blessings!

Patricia :o)

Creatures big and small

Since I've moved to Texas, I've been lucky enough to have much more wildlife visit my back yard. I didn't get pictures of the raccoon and the little grey fox that visit me at night, but here are some other guests that come by.This pretty butterfly actually fought with a hummingbird to get the privilege of a yummy sip of nectar. I've never seen a hummingbird and butterfly "duke" it out before.

I don't mind sharing the bird food with this little guy. He's such a hoot to watch. The only problem is when one of my dogs notice him, there's no peace from either of them. She doesn't stop barking at him, and he sits high up in the treat chattering back at her.

This beautiful creature is an orb spider. This one isn't so big, but the very first one of her species that I saw was as long as my hand! It gave me the heebee jeebies at first because not only is it a big spider, but the web is really sticky. It's not "dangerous" to humans but it can leave a painful, baseball sized welt if it gets you. Thankfully I'm not speaking from experience; just what I've read.

My son left his shoes out on the back porch and found a little visitor inspecting a possible new home. Glad we informed him in time that shoes probably wouldn't work for him.

We have these cute little anole lizards all over the place. Sometimes they're bright green and display a pinkish/red throat pouch. I love having them around.

This is a Greater Roadrunner and runs through our yard on an almost daily basis. I didn't think he'd come back after we put up our perimeter fence, but he just jump/flies over it with no problem. The dogs don't bother him at all and he'll come to the bird bath in the afternoons for a nice cool drink.

I almost forgot to show you our very first INSIDE visitor. This guy was about 1 1/2" long and I found him on my office wall! It was about a week after we moved in to our brand new house. They told us we might find an occasional scorpion in the house, but I sure wasn't expecting it that soon! I know we should have just let him outside, but my hubby got him with tongs and flushed him! Since then, we've found a teeny one on the master bedroom floor (I never ever step on anything that looks like lint on the floor because it might be a scorpion or spider) and a bigger one in the garage crawling above the door the leads to the house. Who wants to move to Texas with me?

Wildseed Farm - Part 1

A couple of days ago my hubby, daughter and I took a drive to a wonderful old town: Fredericksburg, TX. It's about 1 1/2 hrs North of San Antonio. We went for the sole purpose of buying wild flower seeds for our back yard. Our yard is a little big for us and it's pretty much all weeds. We'd heard that we can just throw out some wild flower seeds in October and have a field of flowers in spring. We thought it was some kind of feed store or tiny little nursery. Boy, were we wrong!There is a barn like building full of beautiful accessories for your home, your garden and even boutique-like clothing.
The grounds are full of beautiful Texas landscaping from desert to lush, almost tropical settings.
This is my daughter standing next to a huge hibiscus flower. The plants were full of these gorgeous flowers. The size of the flower is unbelievable! They weren't kidding when they said everything in Texas is bigger!

Walking around to the back are rows upon rows of beautiful wildflowers. Butterflies were fluttering in and around the flowers.
The variety and color of these beautiful flowers is amazing. Each row is marked with the kind of flower it is along with its needs and habits.

Be sure to click on the pictures to enlarge them and see all the details up close.When we went back in the store, we knew exactly were to go...the seed section. The walls were lined with all the flowers we'd seen and more. There are little packets of specific varieties, or different kinds of blends.
We got a large package of Texas wildflowers, a smaller package specifically for hummingbirds and butterflies, and ten packages of different sunflowers. We also purchased a jar of the yummiest honey and pecan sauce. It is so deliciously yummy! On the way home, we stopped by a fruit stand and bought the juiciest and sweetest peaches ever.

Wildseed Farms ships all over and have different blends of each region of the United States. You can click here to go to their site.

I'll be posting the real treat we found at Wildseed Farms in a couple of days. It was the most magical experience!