- Only in Texas

Texas is a land of superlatives and since moving here five years ago we've experienced the most triple-digit days in a summer (100 over 100), the coldest winter on record (complete with frozen pipes ... which didn't burst, fortunately), the highest flood stage ever on the Blanco River, and the wettest May on record (those last two weren't coincidental), and well, you get the idea.

Not that any of this was on my mind when I headed out to do some weeding, after donning proper attire to avoid any misencounters with cactus spines, spiders (tarantulas), snakes, or scorpions ...

Instead, I spent an hour or so pulling up Johnsongrass (an undesirable invasive) and selectively thinning out the  Prairie tea (aka One-seed croton) ... which is native, but competes with the grasses. We have noticed when we pull up the croton, the following year we see an increase in King Ranch bluestem (not the greatest either), which then yields to Little bluestem (highly desirable) and eventually Yellow Indiangrass (woo hoo!)

The Johsongrass ended up on the compost heap, but having read recently about Prairie Tea as a dyestuff, I brought it in for a trial (along with some turkey feathers that I'm gathering for our grandkids to take in to pre-school at Thanksgiving) ...

Since Saskia has been showing off some wonderful clothing dye trials lately, I was inspired to try dyeing this linen top (with the ulterior motive of covering up some stains) ...

Then seriously rolled the biggest tea bag ever and put it in a pot to simmer with some tap water and alum ...

I also decided to test a theory that has been growing in my mind since going through my cloth stash yesterday. When I encountered cloth dyed this spring, I had yet another allergic reaction, even though the cloth had been laundered. Curiously, I didn't have this problem with the dye trials last autumn ... and the chief difference is that I started using a copper pot this spring.

So, I gathered some more Prairie coneflowers (aka Thimble flowers), this time cutting off the entire flower head, not just the petals. Then I put some on a piece of white muslin ...

folded it over and added some more ...

and repeated a couple more times ...

Then rolled and tied it all into a bundle and put it in a (non-food) hot pot with tap water and alum ...

After an hour, color was happening ...

And the back porch smelled heavenly ... which reminds me, one of the things I most love about weeding croton is the wonderfully resinous fragrance akin to sages (aka salvias) that wafts up as you pull them out of the ground ... a fragrance that is definitely enhanced by steeping.

Fingers crossed that these lovelies do not induce an allergic reaction this time around.

Oh, one last thing. In the midst of writing this post, I got an email from a former colleague at the Texas State University library indicating that I might want to take a peek at the latest emergency alert with the tag line "only in Texas."

So I did ...

Superlative!

Update: A few hours later ...