April 2010 Archives

How considerate of this swallowtail caterpillar to give me such a great science shot with its buddy in chrysalis stage!

Knowing how the monarchs are struggling after yet more habitat loss combined with a very damaging winter, I felt incredible hope when I saw this female monarch in my yard this morning. I think she was laying eggs on a few of the leaves, but I need to take a look at the milkweed tomorrow morning to be sure. I really hope she was.

I couldn't get a closer image, because she zoomed away in our busy backyard, but at least I have documentation!

So far this year, I've seen an enormous number of butterflies, including several species I hadn't seen before in my yard. Our dill and parsley are great fun at the moment. My son counted 20 black swallowtail caterpillars, but I have a feeling there are more. They are so much fun to photograph -- no wonder they are probably the best known caterpillar next to the monarch.

We found two of these next caterpillars today -- I think they are some sort of moth of the silkworm family, but I couldn't narrow it down. They were both under oaks, so that's what I returned them to.

Here's another view. Look at those cool white spots between all the spines -- I didn't notice them until I looked at the photographs. Can anyone ID it?

And look, our first Question Mark butterfly! I thought this was a leafwing for awhile, but I couldn't ID it as one. Finally I realized it was a Question Mark, making its name very appropriate, in my opinion. But it's apparently been given the name because of markings on its hindwing. Personally, I find the markings as a "?" a stretch, but oh well!

That was a saying on one of the Earth Day posters at my son's school. Loved it.

Today was a very special Earth Day, marking the official dedication of our new butterfly-hummingbird garden at school. We were proud to be officially recognized by National Wildlife Federation as a certified habitat and by Texas Parks and Wildlife as a Texas Wildscapes Schoolyard Habitat Demonstration Site. It rained, but it was a perfect gift for Earth on Earth Day (here in Austin, rain is always precious), so we didn't mind having to move the ceremony indoors.

  And our students presented community and organization representatives with fantastic 3-D murals that teach about creating wildlife habitats at home.

Oh yeah, I got to be on the news. I even managed to speak coherently. 

It was a good day. Happy Earth Day, everyone.

A bit of camouflage today.

This spider was not happy with the photographer. Bad hair day? Most likely mine.

And hidden in our shed, a nest with at least three baby birdies. The nest was just out of reach of any decent light (had to use a flash), and I really didn't want to disturb the babies for too long just to try to get a better picture. They've grown so fast -- I wish I had documented the stages.

If you look really closely and use your imagination, there's evidence of three baby wrens in the nest. That big one on top is playing mama and keeping the other two warm, I guess!

Speaking of Mama Bird, she also was not happy with the photographer. Bad hair day strikes again!

I suppose technically that this post should have been Fourteen Legs and Three Beaks. Or Sixteen Legs and Four Beaks if you count Mama Bird. Papa Bird was around, too -- now we're up to Eighteen Legs and Five Beaks. Then there's the photographer... Twenty Legs and Five Beaks and Two Lips. There ya go.

It's been a little while since I entered a photo in Gardening Gone Wild's photo contest. Here's my green pick of the month! I love green, every shade. It's been my favorite color for as long as I can remember. Is it the feeling of peace it brings? Its healing qualities? Its symbolism of nature and life? The feeling of rejuvenation, youth, spring?

Yay for green. And happy Earth Day, coming up soon!

Eve's Necklace, Styphnolobium affine/Sophora affinis, also known as Texas Sophora. I once underappreciated this small native tree growing wild in my sideyard, because as a young and small sapling dominated by the cedar elms above it, it was hard-pressed to grab my attention.

As the small saplings became bigger, however, I began to notice the black string of pearls -- its seed pods -- for which it earned its name.

And its light to dark green leaflets I always dubbed as "cute." I'm so technical.

This spring, however, the pink wisteria-like blooms finally caught my eye, and I have been spending many a morning gazing up at the somewhat wispy understory trees.

With more available sun, I know, it gets much denser and takes on the more classic tree look. It can also eventually reach 30 ft, but my tallest is about 15 feet, and I suspect it will always stay less than 25 feet tall due to its location under the much larger shade trees.

Eve's Necklace loves alkaline soil, of which I have plenty, and it is quite adaptable as long as the earth is well-drained. It's fairly fast-growing and germinates well on its own. It's native to Central Texas and hardy to Zone 7.

The tree has moderate deer resistance, but the deer in my neighborhood have left the saplings alone. It serves as a pollen and nectar source, and when dense enough it's a good nesting and cover site.

There's an advantage to living in a place for years and not doing anything with it -- one is that sometimes you get to find gems like Eve's Necklace coming up naturally. I think that I'll scatter the seeds about to get some growing in other places around my yard. I won't eat them though (not that I would) -- they're poisonous!  

Anyone recognize this big caterpillar? EDIT: The mystery caterpillar of the day is a kind of Underwing moth, Catocala ilia. I feel pretty lucky to have found it, actually. Here's more info at Butterflies and Moths of North America. It's about 2.5 inches long, looks like bark, and when it flips upside-down to play dead, it's got a purple banded underside. It's pretty cool.

I'd like to help it make it to its next stage, but I don't know what its larval plant is. I'm going to start with Oak, as that's what I found it under.  EDIT: This species is an eater of Oak leaves, so that's where I returned it to.

By the way, the picture on the left is of the caterpillar in a plastic 4-inch planter -- I know it looks like water, but it's dry, I promise.

All right, someone explain this one to me. My Carolina Jessamine for years had such beautiful bright yellow flowers every spring. This past winter, however, it suffered some during the winter freezes, and ended up looking a little sparse in the leaves but alive, at least. Some of the leaves became rather spotted, as I recall.

This spring I have this: 

It's a crossvine, though opposite in color pattern to my other crossvines. Totally snuck up on me. Whatever happened to my Carolina Jessamine? I apparently completely missed its demise.

A spontaneous pond cleaning turned me once again into the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or barring that, at least the Swamp Thing. Six hours spent mostly in a pond cleaning out winter sludge and muck, with the remaining time spent repotting water plants, turns one into a rather disgusting and smelly abomination. And no, once again, I did not take a picture.

It was time for a spring cleaning of the pond, that's for sure, but what really prompted it today was yesterday's trip to the Wildflower Center Plant Sale. I didn't quite get there at my normal early time, so I now know what it's like to be at the back of the line (note that everyone is admiring the bluebonnets off to the side of the path).

Not only that, but I had to park way off in a neighborhood close to the highway, so it was quite a trek with my little wagon. But this line is nothing compared to the one at check-out. I've never seen it go to the back of the sale area before (comparable to a full block or two distance), and the wait was so long -- I think for some it took close to an hour just to check out!

But I enjoyed myself, and I did get to visit with a couple of fellow Austin garden bloggers and other friends. I controlled myself and only took a wagonful home, and this time it included some pond plants -- hence my venture into sludge and slime! Had it not been dark by the time I got everything done, I might have taken a picture after all... but only of the pond, not of the Creature.

Happily six of our nine goldfish made it through the winter. I'll find out in the morning whether I managed to kill any of them with my massive pond cleaning.

And now it's time to go enjoy a margarita and help my back recover from my day in the swamp...

Our schoolyard habitat is designed with native Texas plants chosen for their wildlife value and drought-hardiness, plus a few herbs thrown in for sensory value. It's really meant to be an educational garden for the kids and a demonstration garden for the community, so labeling the plants well is critical for everyone to get the most out of it.

But money doesn't grow on trees (not even on a money tree, darn it). I opted to create labels on the computer and laminate them, then attach them to metal markers with a hot-glue gun.

Each plant is identified with common name and scientific name. The labels have a variety of symbols on them. The Texas symbol, of course, is meant to show people which plants are native to our fine state. For the few non-natives, the plants are identified with an herb symbol or a sun for "drought-hardy."

 But additional symbols on each label identify the wildlife value of the plant, whether it be a hummingbird favorite, a pollinator attractor, a caterpillar larval host plant, or a seed- or berry-producing plant for the birds. Some plants qualify for more than one wildlife symbol.

Which of our plants had the highest wildlife value?

Coral honeysuckle wins -- not only is it a hummingbird and butterfly/bee plant with its red tubular flowers, but it's a larval host to the Spring Azure butterfly and the Snowberry Clearwing moth, and it provides berries that birds enjoy.

I figure that in general visiting adults will get the most out of the native TX symbols and the plant IDs, but both kids and adults will look at the wildlife symbols. And that's when they'll really start to connect those plants to what they offer our birds and insects.

How long will they last? No idea. But so far I've created about 70 labels -- a pretty cost-effective way to produce such large quantities.

Now ask me if I label any of my plants at home. Ha. I'm lucky if I don't manage to lose the markers that come in the pot when I buy a new plant! I can't tell you how many plants I haven't planted because I can't ID them anymore. 

For many of my plants, this is their "creep" year, and for a few, it's their "leap" year.

I'm counting on it, because so far this season I've had very little time to spend in my own garden -- it's all gone to the school habitat. My poor plants have been on their own for awhile now!

Some of the second-year plants aren't just blooming --they're by gosh BLOOOOMING. Gorgeously so. The four-nerves, seen above, are finally blooming with gusto. And my Salvia greggii in the front yard has really started to take off.

My crossvine has exploded in tubular flowers and buds-to-be. Really, I'm astonished everytime I look at it -- it hardly bloomed in the fall, and now you can barely see the leaves through all the blooms. This picture is from a few days ago, and the blooms are far greater in number now.

And I sense that it will be another good wildlife year. My first official spring garden visitor captured with a camera is a new species to my yard, that I'm aware of. I believe this is a Juniper Hairstreak, a little tattered but enjoying its time on my Blackfoot Daisy.

Last weekend we did begin to attempt to tackle the Weed Jungle. It's so horrifying I can't bring myself to take a picture of it. On the plus side, though, it inspired me to make a pathway through it, and now it will be easier to know what is meant to be pathway and what is meant to be free-plant-zone. And I don't mean weeds!

And as it turns out, a Weed Jungle makes for pretty good places to hide Easter Eggs. Two positives! Think I'll be in such a good mood after we get back to work on the weeds this weekend?

Tomorrow's the Wildflower Plant sale, and I'm sure I'll once again overspend buying plants I haven't yet prepared beds for. On the other hand, that's pretty much how I garden, so I guess I can just smile and enjoy the process!

Yesterday my family, aunt, and cousin enjoyed visiting several homes on Austin's second annual Funky Chicken Coop Tour. I'd been looking forward to it since I found out about the tour a week after it took place last year. It was certainly fun but not as funky as I'd envisioned -- after visiting the Cathedral of Junk last weekend I was really jived for some more Keep Austin Weirdness!

But chickens are weird all in themselves, so I was content. And they're cute. Some are downright beautiful, actually -- gorgeous patterns and whatnot.

Some of the first chicken coops we visited were quite well designed.

My husband was a big fan of the sliding doors on this next chicken coop.

The inside of another chicken coop looked fun for the chickens, but by mid-afternoon it was quite hot in there, and most of the chickens were outside.

This castle coop definitely qualified as funky. I can't say it was designed for practicality -- quite difficult to clean, but we spent more time at this house than any other. That says something!

The chickens loved the boys, who fetched them grass from around the yard.

Flowers decorated the castle...

And a peek inside revealed a framed picture to spark the chickens' imagination.

Other nifty things about this castle coop were a large mailbox converted to a nesting box, and a doghouse as another one, and this bicycle-turned-waterwheel-and-fountain. There were even fish in the pond below.

Some of the chicken coops were large, like the one at Eastside Cafe. Of course, the gorgeous vegetable gardens distracted me. (This garden is worthy of a full blog tour sometime, too -- another visit, though.)

But their sister farm, also in East Austin, had 200 chickens, the largest number on the tour.

This stop sign added an element of the funky and functional. Would that make it funk-tional?

And I liked this artwork from a recycled tire.

We finished the tour armed with ideas for our coop we plan to build this spring or summer. My primary requirement on our design -- it must be easy to clean (that automatically means it will be tall). But we want it to be fun and funky and funk-tional, too.

Happy Easter, everyone! Hope it was eggs-cellent!

I have more bad jokes to share with you, but I'm too chicken.

Exhausted from our school's habitat Dig Day, we nevertheless got up the next morning to begin another busy day. Birthday brunch at the in-laws, followed by taking our dogs to hunt for doggy-treat-filled Easter eggs at the Austin Begg Hunt, followed by a visit to the Zilker Garden Festival, followed by a tour of an Austin landmark, followed by seeing a movie. Did we do anything after that? If we did, I seriously blocked it out. I'm not even sure I ate dinner that night.

While I have pictures from throughout the day, what I really want to show you is the Austin landmark we visited. Known as the Cathedral of Junk, this pile of objects from former days of glory forms a 3-story arrangement of rooms and look-out points. The South Austin residence and artistic structure is owned by Vince Hanneman, who began building a creation of junk in 1988, and visitors have helped it grow substantially ever since.

Upon arrival, visitors get a taste of the weird from the very front of the residence. There are interesting objects in the front yard, including a collection of cycling trophies above the front door, but the real fun begins when one enters the backyard. I was amused by the Praying Mantis (I think that's what it is) eating the Wildlife Habitat sign.

The chickens in their coop kept a close eye on our dogs. I wonder if at night they are released as guard birds.

Earlier in the day, I greatly admired an arbor covered in thousands of gorgeous yellow flowers at the Zilker Botanical Garden. I couldn't believe it when I saw an arbor covered in the same yellow flowers right there at the Cathedral of Junk of all places. I wonder if this is the same flower that Rock Rose has, Lady Banks.

Beside the flowers, a surfboard stands adorned with the signatures of countless visitors to the Cathedral of Junk. Had I had any sort of pen, I'd have signed it, too.

And from there one begins to explore the cathedral itself. It's quite an impressive contraption, wired and welded and cemented strategically. To some it might look potentially dangerous, but I felt quite confident that its builders had built the structure quite soundly.

There are a variety of rooms and passageways, with hanging discs and other objects to bring colorful light inside.

A few ladders and steps allow visitors to reach various vantage points and different levels.

I think one could visit the Cathedral of Junk 100 times and always see something different, and it's one of the qualities I find particularly appealing.

Objects range from the odd...

(I really don't want to know what the squirrel in this next image is doing...)

to the strangely endearing...

to the downright creepy.

My husband pointed out that this receiver was once a really nice one back in the day.

My son enjoyed being the King of Junk for a moment.

We climbed a ladder to a second-story room...

 and found a bedroom of sorts.

From the back of the cathedral, one really gets an idea of the true scale of the structure.

There's also an altar of sorts in the back created as a memorial to those only there in spirit. Nearby is about the only good use for ligustrum I've seen... as a table.

One of the things I liked was that my son got to see some objects I remembered from my youth. He got to type on an old typewriter (ok, the typewriter was actually way older than me), and he even got to ride a little horse (I warned him I'd take a picture for the blog if he dared to get on it!).

On the way out, this giant bird looming over us through bamboo seemed to be watching us a little too closely.

As we exited, we left a small donation for the owner. It absolutely is an awesome place to visit. 

While I was incredibly impressed by careful and artistic arrangement of objects at the Cathedral of Junk, apparently one visitor from awhile back did not think so, for a complaint to the city officials has led to some urgent adjustments to get the Cathedral up to code to avoid dismantling. It's this reason we visited this particular weekend -- knowing the possibility that the Cathedral might be shut down for good, we knew we wanted to see it right away.

But Cathedral of Junk fans are working every day to make the necessary changes to get the Cathedral up to code, and other groups are showing their support in a variety of ways. They know that there's substantial value (not necessarily of the monetary kind) to this pile of junk, and if ever there is a place that Keeps Austin Weird, this is it.