So, the other night,  starrbella  and woodwitch * and I were sitting out on my back porch, and saw something completely weird.  Is that a bumble bee?  No, it's a moth - IS that a moth?  The hell??

*Okay, apparently it wasn't woodwitch .  I have the memory of a goldfish, I swear.  Alright, who was it?  Was it you?  Have you seen this moth?


Bumble Bee Moth:




This may or may not be exactly what we saw - I could swear the antennae were fuzzy, but maybe it's because it was moving so fast.  Otherwise, it looked exactly like this.  Bumble Bee Moth, aka (and/or a variety of) Hummingbird Moth, one of the clear-winged moths.  Which is just COOL. 



I just can't believe What's That Bug doesn't have anything on it - that's been THE bug identification site for me for several years, especially when I first moved into my house and was still being inundated with displaced bugs that were still trying to come "home" to what was no longer a mini-forest (like the Dobsonfly that I found on my front porch one morning at 4am). 


Ooh - speaking of small, multi-legged critters, I have not one, but TWO barn spiders in my herb garden!  Yay!  I was wondering where the hell all my spiders were this year!  Must get pics tonight - they re-build thier webs every day around sunset.  (Old spider pics here, if you're interested). 


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I am going to be needing a blue Jacaranda tree: 



Buenos Aires


Is that not amazing??  Wow!  Maybe in my next house.  I don't have room for any more big trees  :(   (This thing will get to be 20-50 feet high, and grows pretty quickly). 

It also apparently grows very well here in Central/South Texas (as well as southern California, Hawaii, Florida) - South American native, exceptionally drought-tolerant.


  < - the reason it's called J. mimosifolia!



The flowers remind me a bit of the Desert Willow, which I also absolutely adore (and which I do actually have room for in my yard, WHY haven't I gotten one yet?):









Not only is it still raining, it's raining HARD.  Nonstop.  Flash-flood sort of rain. 

NEAT.  

No flash floods, though, please, M. Nature. Thanks,

~ s1




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It's raining at my house!  Or, it was when I left.  Pretty hard, too.  After snoozing the alarm (and the cats) about nine million times this morning, a HUGE clap of thunder woke me up.  There was nearly nonstop thunder and lightning this morning - and by the time I made it to the kitchen, the clock on the microwave already needed to be reset, hehe. 

Poor Shelly was glued to my leg all morning.  She never comes into the bathroom - baths happen in there! - but this morning she was sitting right behind me while I was putting on my makeup, leaning against my leg.  I tried to turn around to pet her and comfort her, and she kept walking around me in a circle, staying behind me.  AWWW.  Poor kid. :)  She didn't want me to go to work, either - almost tried to come with me, lol.  So cute.  :)

The radar says the stuff at my house is a smallish storm, looks to be just blowing up, and moving northward, towards some bigger systems that are moving in from the northwest (I hope the rain I left down south will make it up to where I work so I can enjoy it some more - it's weird, it never rains in the morning around here).  Dare I hope for actual weather today?  More rain!  Yay!  

(But no tornadoes this time, please).


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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 08:53 Monday. *blinkblink* what? #
• 10:09 Wanna see the monster friggin zucchini I grew? tinyurl.com/nhmsn5 @.@ #
• 10:10 The Mexican Hat Dance is stuck in my head. *beats head on wall* #
• 13:24 Monthly grocery planning FAIL (I blame the camping trip. My mind wasn't on the game): been eating cereal for a frigging week. #

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So, it's 105+ degrees outside, dry as a freakin bone, with no end in sight, at least for another couple of months.  Mandatory watering restrictions, "extreme" drought across most of the state. 

My vegetables have all stopped blooming and fruiting, it's so hot.  The hope I had for the tomatoes coming back in the Fall have been dashed - hornworms appeared in my garden over the weekend and completely destroyed most of my tomato plants before I even noticed they were there.  The beans have completely dried up and wilted in the intense heat and sunlight.  The strawberry plants are still going strong, but it's too hot for them to bloom or set fruit.  The squash and cucumber plants went long ago (to a combination of heat and dog trampling!) - the one remaining zucchini plant's been limping along, but not actually producing anything. 

I thought. 

And then last night, while cliftontejas  and woodwitch  were over, woodwitch  found this:




LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING!!!  It's longer than my forearm, and nearly as wide!  It weighs like a million freakin pounds!  

HOW I never noticed this, I have no idea - I've been rooting around near it several times in the last couple of weeks, pulling garlic out from underneath.  Never even noticed it!

So, the count this year: 

3 strawberries (well, more, but the dogs got the rest before I put the fence up)
7-10 tomotoes (90% of which were stolen last month; I've only actually gotten to pick like 2)
1 'Big Chile' pepper
5 heads of garlic
1 MONSTER FUCKING ZUCCHINI OMG

And while I'm impressed with the zucchini, I'm about ready to throw in the towel and just stop trying to grow vegetables.  Something ALWAYS happens.  I can't keep up with the freaking drought.  Last year Taco Bell, took up all my time and I couldn't do anything with the veggetables I planted.  In 2006 it was insect infestation on a truly epic scale.  In 2005 I had pneumonia most of the Spring, and my tomatoes went wild and started trying to eat my house, instead of growing pretty little tomatoes to eat.  ONE year I had an amazing veggie garden:  in 2007 when it rained for like eight months straight.  

Sigh. 


 

"No."


And nobody was surprised.  ;)


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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 10:58 Carter Can: ruin a beautiful antique kitchen. #
• 11:02 ''Idealic''?! #

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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 08:47 Oh, THAT's why I never wear these pants. Now I'm stuck like this for nine hours. Great. #

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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 11:32 Lunch potatoes all stuck together. Potato chain! Also: burnt. #
• 11:45 This is the biggest cornflake I have EVER SEEN. #
• 12:48 I need more plants. #
• 13:03 She's looking at my funny again. #
• 13:21 Pb & J: lead and jelly sandwich. #
• 14:32 I wish I had some chain. You never know when you're gonna need chain. Should have gotten it at that garage sale a coupla months ago. #

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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 18:29 Mmm, chicken pasta salad. #
• 20:21 Wtf just bit me? One on each foot, simultaneously! #
• 20:23 Mischief managed: leaf and legs from old dining/coffee table into console for head of bed - nightstand! #
• 10:36 tinyurl.com/kquecw too french? too ornate? needs to be up on legs? #
• 12:24 hot flashes? really?? I'm 33!!! Is there another reason for those? Maybe I'm dying. Spontaneous combustion. Slowly. #
• 14:44 Icovia Space Planner on Lane furniture.com. Redecorate EVERYTHING! SQUEE!! :D #
• 14:45 See, look: tinyurl.com/lwlbop (what I'm doing with space planner) #
• 16:13 Headache. Blf. #

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Found a new room planner thingie online to play with today:  Icovia Space Planner (at Lane Furniture)


So, here's my bedroom as it has been for about a year:





And here's what I did to it over the weekend - moved the bed out into the middle of the room, added a a dresser, moved the altar cabinet, etc.: 









And now it needs plants, rugs, and a big, standing wall mirror:






:D



To the living room!  Ooh, or the kitchen...I've been playing with my kitchen remodel ideas lately.  C'monnnnn, Lowe's $5K shopping spree sweepstakes!  Mama needs a new fridge! 


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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 08:06 Morning: hungry, tired, back spasms. More sleep, please. #
• 08:13 Chips and beans! #
• 09:38 I'm so tired I'm about to fucking cry. #
• 11:27 hey, @murfnik, wanna see something awful? # 2832, top left corner: tinyurl.com/5w3bb4 *giggle* #
• 15:32 grubs. #

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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 09:03 Tango Maureen stuck in my head this morning. #
• 13:27 I wonder if I could make a salt & pepper set from a couple of small plastic vibrators? #
• 13:50 one note wonder: everything on my etsy favorites is blue. #
• 16:14 .@murfnik Mmmm, pi. #

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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 09:06 Put oil in mower: still not work. Then weedeater broke. Arg. #
• 09:07 Somebody is the best BFF ever :) #
• 10:20 Cat: WHAT are you doing to the water boxes?? #
• 11:14 LITA'S EATING AGAIN!!! :) #
• 11:34 And this day would henceforth be known as The Day s1ren Remembered What A Frikkin Mop Was For. #
• 11:51 Ninja Cat not as stealthy as he thinks. #
• 12:46 I'm too sweaty for my pants, too sweaty for my shirt, so sweaty it...itches... #
• 14:05 Recycling Fail: shattered 3 fluorescent tubes. LOT of glass. Vacuumed AGAIN. *facepalm* #
• 14:12 Birds nesting in my Clematis again :) Also, called Poison Control, not going to die of mercury vapor inhalation. #
• 15:42 Catspeak: 'mraattkkkt!' = WANT SPIDER!!! #

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Welcome to Non Sequiturs Anon.: we don't make sense, but we like pizza!

• 17:59 Watering plants. Cats performing onsite QA inspection. #
• 20:14 2.5 hr houseplant rodeo! Food now, oy! #
• 22:58 Snuggly bedtime kitty says, 'Good night.' #
• 08:58 I got enough sleep! Cat woke me up snuggly instead of standing on my boob. Free soda from Sonic. Awesome morning so far! #
• 11:36 Favorite holiday: Fizzner. (FSNR: Free Shit for No Reason) #
• 15:47 .@DSylvan You rock like God's balls. #

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Have:

        
Persian Shield (Strobilanthes)              'Before the Storm' Iris               purple Oxalis

     
Coleus                                                 Purple Thai Basil                    Chinese Fringe Flower (Loropetalum)

Everything else is getting moved to the backyard this Fall, to tighten up the color scheme (all the Yarrow (white), Indigo (pink), Lorrie's Lilies (pink), and blue Irises.  The evergreen stuff is staying, though (Rosemary, Garlic Chives (white flowers, but whatever - we'll call them highlights).  So are the white Calla lilies - they're white, but I LOVE the way the weird foliage combines with everything else.



Want:

     
'Imerial' or 'Illustris' Taro (Colocasia)                  big fluffy hosta                                   black Violas...do I still have seed?

     
purple Wandering Jew (Tradescantia)          'Zebrina' Wandering Jew             black Hollyhocks, since Neighbor Steve KILLED mine this year! Poo!

 
Tri-Color Sweet Potato Vine, which I will grow in a POT this time and NOT IN THE GROUND OMFG.  



...turning the mostly-pink garden with black accents back into the "Black" Garden (various deep purples) that it was supposed to be in the first place.  I had a Black Garden at my duplex over ten years ago (egad), and always meant to re-do it at this house, but haven't ever really gone whole hog with it. 



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Houseplant rodeo last night:  watered everybody, flushed all hanging baskets and soaked for >1hr, re-potted seventeen plants (about half of them!), re-painted four flowerpots, dealt with three dead plants and two that were beyond salvation, spruced up a flagging Aralia, and moved a pothos in a vase of water to a pretty vase of water that actually goes with my stuff.

Front porch, too:  swept; cleaned the mat; removed empty pots, dead hanging baskets (oops, should probably water those once in a while), and junky old wood that used to be decorative and now is just old and gross looking; put out new containers, painted to match (tall thin terra cotta painted in a grayish-blackish thing to kind of resemble florist's buckets) and filled them with Sansiviera.

The front door is black, as of last weekend.  Here's what's in my head:


 
(stock magazine picture I've seen several times over the past ten years)

Obviously, my front porch is not this big.  I have no slate tile, and my house is beige instead of white.  But my front garden is populated by similar colors:  lots of purple and black foliage, purple flowers, couple of pink flowers as lighter accents.  I really want to make the (Sansiviera) container plantings around the front door a) match the front garden and b) look more like this picture; problem is, my front porch gets NO direct sunlight at all, and very little indirect light, early in the morning.  I was thinking of using big, fluffy hostas as a fill/footer - and in the hanging baskets that I keep killing - and probably some of the Persian Shield, Coleus, and purple Oxalis from my garden.  I have some of each growing nearby in very similar light conditions, and they do just fine.  

   


I reeeeally want some of those big, pointy, green and purple things in the picture, though.  I'm not sure what they are - could be Alocasia or Colocasia;  I think it's the first one (uh-oh: water requirements issues in a mixed planter).  I also want some of that purple Wandering Jew for the hanging baskets, but hell if I'm paying for it - that stuff grows practically wild all over the place, I'm sure I could find a safe (legal) place to take a cutting from a public area (not someone's yard).   

My front garden is in need of a major overhaul this Fall.  Hm.

So, the only houseplant that didn't get any attention that needed it (other than watering) is my gigantico Bird of Paradise, which desperatly needs to be re-potted:  at the moment, it's still in the nursery can, which sits inside the planter it's supposed to live in, and it's about damned time it had room to spread out.  Hard to do that on the kitchen counter, though, like I do with the smaller plants.  Gonna have to haul that one outside.  It needs big work, though:  it's got ants, the scale I got rid of a month ago is starting to come back, and it needs pruning.   So: Saturday.  Among other things. 


ETA:  Aha!  Colocasia!

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