Other places for other times

Once I wrote a post about where I write (Where I write). There is photo of that spot in another post (Not that you were even wondering). Obviously it is a place that inspires me, but just because I have a favorite place doesn’t mean it is the only place I ever sit down at the keyboard (or with pen and paper).

One of the reasons we chose this house was because it had a very nice studio space already fixed up. I was doing some freelance photography at the time and one of our house hunting goals was to find a place that I could have set up to shoot on a permanent basis. I was tired of having to set up what were sometimes elaborate studio set-ups in our living room and then take them down at the end of the day whether I was shooting the following day or not.

My studio was originally a one car garage. I don’t know if it is as old as the house, but I bet it is close, and I enjoy romanticizing the idea of setting up my photo hut in a 1923 garage. As I mentioned, it is fixed up thanks to a previous owner who did a wonderful job finishing it out so that it has better insulation, less drafty windows, newer wiring and a more secure door than the rest of the place.

It also has two north facing windows that look out onto our back yard. The yard has evolved over the fifteen years we have lived here. We have replaced the St. Augustine lawn and more standard shrubs with wildflowers and other native plants and trees. There was one vegetable garden here (There were even tomatoes growing when we moved in — this was definitely the right place!) and I have added two more raised vegetable beds and an herb garden.

The studio is where I sit to write if I want to have a view of nature while I’m writing. It’s always been a good place to sit and plot changes to the yard and watch the birds and squirrels going about their daily routines.

For example, there is Turk’s cap right outside the window and this year it has given me an opportunity to observe hummingbirds going about their business from just a couple of feet away. For some reason I’m not as interested in trying to capture them with my camera any more and prefer to just observe them and revel in their near presence. It both invigorates me and gives me a calm sense of oneness with the nature that surrounds me—even in an urban setting.

Autumn is making its approach in fits and starts and the hummingbirds are moving south. I will miss the pleasant sounds of their faerie voices announcing their daily arrivals but I look forward to other residents and travelers who frequent my oasis of nature within the city.

Weird Image Wednesday [160615]

Cousin Compost

Sometimes I feel like I’m going to break down.

Around here everyone (thing) is part of the family!

Little square pops in my yard

The Spring morning sunlight has my yard popping with color

Please be sure to mouse over the photos to get the full effect — I love my theme but until the photos become active they are somewhat muted.

On clear mornings I enjoy watching the sun shine through the small bright leaves on this althea in my backyard.

I would have never planted this ornamental plum myself (it was here when I moved in), but I have grown to love the variety of colors that it can appear based on lighting, season and time of day.

Here’s a closeup of one of the althea leaves. Even the background has popping spheres of color!

What Texas Spring photo series would be complete without these. They may be used in photos a lot but the color really is beautiful.

These dianthus (pinks) overwinter well and bloom profusely season after season. They are an incredibly dependable source of color.

We planted this coral honeysuckle several years ago and every year it gets more full of blooms – with minimal care on our part.

Even Omar wanted to get in on the act and popped up on the yard cart for a little morning sun and meditation.

 

It’s Alive!

This artichoke plant is taking over the whole bed in which it was planted.

I planted a tiny artichoke plant last fall and now I’m starting to wish I had planted it somewhere else. It’s only mid March and the plant is already huge. Shooting this plant from above led to some fun working with the shadows.

Cabbage, cabbage where’s my cabbage?

Can you find the tiny cabbage in the shadow of the out of bounds artichoke? This plant might be shading the whole house by the time summer rolls around.

Who dares to venture into the ancient dark forest of artichoke?

Up close it makes me think of some kind of prehistoric plant.

Results are in, Spring still my favorite season

I was thinking of putting “Your Ad Here” on the stone next to my rain gauge.

Much of what I think about water these days has to do with rain. When I grew up in south Louisiana, I took water for granted. It rained a lot, we lived right next to a bayou and there was water nearby in every direction.

Now I appreciate every drop. Gardening viability, tree health, drinking water supplies — these things are on my mind frequently. The first real post on this blog was about rain.

This is a rain gauge that Julie gave me for our anniversary. Who knew that 21 years is frog yard art! So far I’ve been very glad to see this little garden helper get plenty of action. The frog seems okay with it too.

This always ready frog and I love the same things – being in the garden and rain.

Hot Peppers Fend Off Approaching Cool Nights

Three varieties of peppers (banana, serrano and my very spicy surprise guest) and many more beautiful colors.

This was a great year for my pepper plants. Of course, here in Texas, I’m not about to claim that statement actually means very much considering how well the darn things grow. But this year brought a crop that I was particularly pleased with.

I grow my peppers in pots and have done so for a number of years. They don’t need to be in the ground and it is a ready way to save the valuable real estate of my raised beds for other plants that appreciate the space more.

This year I chose four varieties (and ended up with five): jalepeños, serranos, banana and cayenne. I planted two serrano plants but one of them was mislabeled and turned out to be something else and very hot.

One of these things is not like the other – serrano on the right and something labeled serrano on the left that turned out to be much hotter.

One thing  I did differently this year was leave some banana peppers on the plant for longer and let them turn red. I always like growing these because they are are a good substitute for bell peppers (which I also grow sometimes). They mature faster, require less nutrients and care, and are more productive than bell peppers usually are around here. The taste is similar and they are good raw in salads or cooked in pasta sauce and stir fry.

This year, due to the abundance of banana peppers on the two plants I grew, I let some stay on the bush longer than I normally would. The first thing I noticed was the beautiful series of colors the peppers turned. In addition to the shot below, the first image in this post shows some of the deep yellows, oranges and reds that were part of the ripening process.

Banana peppers left on the bush until they turned red – beautiful and great tasting too.

The other thing I noticed about these well ripened peppers is the way the flavor evolved. I still enjoy the green ones but the red ones had a fuller, more mellow flavor with a nice hint of peppery bite — somewhat like a red bell pepper.

Today is the first day of November and I shouldn’t be talking about this in the past tense. All my plants are still producing and until we have a hard freeze, they should be able to keep going. It’s not unusual for me to have peppers until just before Christmas. With a little effort I could probably protect them and keep them going even longer, but I just let them go when the weather gets colder.

It seems that every year there is one particular crop that stands out and this year it was these beautiful and delicious peppers, although  I never did catch the name of the blazing hot uninvited guest.

Not to be outdone by the banana peppers, some members of this year’s serrano crop turned a brilliant vivid red.

Letting go of this summer’s garden

The year of the Turk’s Cap

Turk’s Cap

I shudder to think how many of these things we have planted this year. The problem is, they will not allow me to ignore them. These plants smugly offer so much that I am unable to resist planting them all over the yard.

Here is the quick rundown:

1. They are drought tolerant
2. and they aren’t very picky about the kind of soil you plant them in
3. and they grow well and bloom profusely in the shade
4. and as if that wasn’t enough — they attract hummingbirds and other pollinators
5. and they are beautiful plants with dark green foliage and brightly colored blooms.

The Turk’s Cap has been blooming in my backyard for months – with no sign of letting up.

We planted our first ones about three years ago. Once they were established (one season), they have not required any water. I do water them occasionally, but none of plants appear to suffer much from lack of water.

Turk’s Cap will die back during the winter and trimming them down to the ground has worked because most of the new growth comes from very low on the old stems or from new shoots that spring up. They do spread somewhat, but are easy to control and haven’t been invasive. On the contrary, I usually encourage the spreading in areas where I have planted them and enjoy having the plants fill out and make a nice stand.

Every year we see hummingbirds, bees and wasps on the blooms. We have hummingbird feeders and the Turk’s Cap is one thing that attracts them to our  yard. They also enjoy our salvia and Trumpet Vine.

Turk’s Cap is one plant that I recommend heartily for those in my area (Fort Worth, TX) who are looking for something to plant in shaded areas. Sometimes it seems very hard to find natives that both grow in the shade and bloom and these plants are proving to be virtually indestructible.

The petals of Turk’s cap make an interesting spiral.

Weird Image Wednesday [150624]

Strange new creature created by optical illusion.

Black Swallowtail caterpillar devouring dill in my herb bed.

Weird Image Wednesday [150610]

Backlit Sunflower

Sunflower from my garden with illuminated leaf.

Do you want to help record images of your neighborhood?

Recruiting Photographers:

Primary qualifications are interest & enthusiasm

The neighborhood photo blog idea is something that’s been in my mind for a while. I’ve participated in and organized several neighborhood photo shows where photographers of various levels of experience shot in certain parts of town for a set time. Then we would hold an exhibit. Over time I grew to like organizing and promoting other people’s work as much as showing my own. I found I had the knack for it and I can be pretty good at wrangling creative people. I still shoot photos all the time but I enjoying helping other photographers more now.

I believe in the power of places, whether in their natural state or developed by humans, to stimulate ideas, create feelings and invoke memories of personal and shared experience. The main thoroughfare in my neighborhood is a brick paved boulevard lined with vintage lampposts, trees and older building and homes. The modern is there as well, but there is enough of the old left to create what to me is a comforting atmosphere. One of the reasons I live there is that I like the frame of mind that I’m put into as I make my way home. Without over analyzing it, I’ll just say that it feels like home to me. It evokes memories of various times and places from throughout my life and helps provide continuity and context as I learn to embrace life’s never ending changes.

I want my online documentary site to be a place where anyone with a desire to record for posterity those aspects of their local environs that provide comfort now and yet may someday disappear. It can also be used as a place to share things we like about our world without any thought to whether or how long it will stick around. Ideally, it can even be a place where we all learn something about other places, times and cultures, exploring and sharing the differences and similarities that weave together to form this rich and wondrous world in which we all share an existence.

The site has places for images, writings, participant galleries and a forum to discuss the how and why of what we are doing. It is all set up and ready to go at recorditnow.gigapages.net. I am a lover of people’s photos and a recognizer that many things can be said with images whether or not the person creating them even realizes it. I welcome participation on any level — from a single photo to an entire gallery. Please contact me by leaving a message on this page if you would like to participate. I look forward to hearing from you.

Where I live, there aren’t many evenings when I can get a shot like this at 10pm and so I wanted to record it.