Drought & Water Restrictions

Living in Texas, you expect the triple digit temperatures, and you even expect that there will be droughts and water restrictons.  What really irks me are those people who refuse to follow the watering restrictions.  In the area where I live, we are at Stage II which means we can only water outside using sprinklers on certains days of the week and only during certain hours (not during the heat of the day).  Since people are not following the restrictions and the water consumption is too high to sustain us through the drought, they are considering going to Stage III which could be no outside watering.  I see some of the people in my neighborhood who water every day and simply don't care. Their reasoning is that "they can afford the bill".  How can we get them to see that it is not about whether you can afford the bill?  I can afford my bill too, but I want to ensure that we have water to sustain us through the drought.  For those people who are only worried about their yard looking pretty, how do we get them to understand? 

Yard Work

Today hubby and I, mostly hubby, did a little work in the back yard.  We have some spots in our back yard where the grass just isn't doing very well.  We think we may have a fungus call brown spot, but we aren't 100% sure.  We are going to take a sample and get it tested.  In the meantime, we are doing some of the others things suggested to take care of it and that should at least make it better.  If we don't have brown spot and it is just the heat, then the things we are going to do won't hurt the grass.  Other than working in the yard, we had a pretty uneventful day.  What did you do today?

Bats

We seem to have a lot of bats that hang around in our area.  Late in the evenings, we can see them flying all around.  I don't know much about bats, but they are kind of cool to watch.

Tall Grass

Typically we have tow mow the lawn once a week and when it gets near the one week mark, the dogs begin pulling up the tall grass.  They can't stand when it gets too tall.  It's not like we let the grass get a foot tall.  Anything over 3 inches and the dogs start pulling it out.  Anytime we are outside with them, we have to constantly keep telling them to stop pulling on the grass.  If we could just teach them how to trim it evenly all over, then we wouldn't even have to mow.

Exhausted

We have had a very productive, but busy weekend. On Saturday we got up early and planned to reorganize the garage to fit the new shelving we had purchased. The temp was nice outside and before we knew it that turned in to cleaning and reorganizing the whole garage. Then we stepped out to go grab a bite to eat and buy groceries. After that, we still had a little energy, so we mowed the front lawn including edging and trimming the bushes. We were officially exhausted, so we called it a day around 8pm and went in to have leftovers for dinner. Today, we got up and mowed, edged, and seeded the back yard. That didn't take long, but considering we were still tired from yesterday it took longer that normal. After that we went to Snuffy's to have a burger then to Lowe's (our official second home these days) and back to the house. Now I still need to finish laundry and finish my paper for school. My portion of the paper is done, I just need one of my team mates to add his portion and it is ready to submit. A very busy and exhausting weekend, but very productive.

Our Yard

Hubby and I spend a great deal of time working in our yard. He is very diligent about doing weed and feed, he walks the yard daily looking for unwanted weeds and pulls them by hand; when we mow the lawn, I always over seed to make sure any sparse areas fill in. We have one neighbor that asked what we do because she really wanted her yard to be as green as ours (hers was really brown). Now today, I heard the neighbor on the other side talking to her husband and asking why our yard was green and theirs was brown. They don't spend a lot of time working on their yards and that is okay; they spend their time doing other things. We find it relaxing to be outside drinking a beer, doing little things to the yard while the dogs are running and playing. That's just our thing.

Who knows, maybe this year we will even win yard of the month and the nice Lowe's gift card that goes along with it!

Lawn Aerator Sandals

Our lawn is really compacted so we decided to buy some lawn aerator sandals. We couldn't find any locally, so we purchased them online. They finally came in the mail yesterday. It seems like a pretty easy concept; put them on over your shoes and walk around the yard. The spikes in the bottom of the shoes help the aerate the yard.

I put them on over my crocs, stood up to begin walking around the lawn and fell flat on my face. The spikes stuck in the ground so deep that I couldn't get them out. My feet were firmly planted in the ground and I couldn't get enough leverage to get myself up or to pull the spikes out of the ground. The dog is outside with me and she wanders over and begins licking me. Although very sweet, it is no help to me at all. I was about to call for hubby to come get me unstuck when I decided to give it one more try; that time did the trick. I took the sandals off and went inside. After hubby stopped laughing at the story I had just told him, he helped me give it another try. This time I was more successful and was able to walk around the yard. I focused on the more compacted areas since it was really hot outside.

If you are looking for a good work out, this will definitely work your legs and butt. After finishing the yard, I could definitely feel the muscles I had worked. I really noticed how much they hurt after I had finished taking a shower and relaxed a bit.

Overall the lawn sandals were a good idea, but are going to take some work to get the hang of how to operate them.

Tillie, Carl and the Pepito's

Tillie, Carl and the Pepito's are my plants. Yes, my plants have names. I know I am a little strange - that is nothing new.

Tillie is my tomato plant. She has three tomatoes that are growing nicely, but are not yet ready to be picked. I can't wait until they ripen and we can pick them.

Carl is my cucumber plant. He has lots of flowers, but no cucumbers yet. He is planted in a 2-3 foot long planter and he extends about 2 feet on each side of the planter making him about 6 feet long. He is trying to attach himself to everything - except the wire and posts I gave him to attach to.

The Pepito's are my pepper plants. There are hot peppers, an assortment of sweet peppers, and some bell peppers. The hot and sweet peppers are looking nice, but they don't have any peppers on them yet. The bell pepper has 3 little peppers on it that are growing nicely. Hopefully in a couple of weeks they will be big enough to pick.

This is my first attempt at having a garden in pots, so it will be cool to see how well they do this year.