I'm Going to Texas: Grasses

Showing posts with label Grasses. Show all posts

Saturday, May 4, 2019

Storytelling

The storm last night was fierce, the windows rattling as thunder boomed and lightning flashed directly overhead ...

We took comfort in a handful of dewberries picked earlier in the day, sweetened with a bit of ice cream and a granola/streusel mixture for a deconstructed crumble (recipe at the end) ...

This morning we woke to green and 3.8 inches in the rain gauge ...

Fortunately, we live 300 feet above the Blanco River, which is at flood stage and rising. Not for the last time I think, "we live in a land of flood and drought."

The land this spring is a riot of grass and wildflowers, everything taller than we've ever seen things, especially the Mealy Blue Sage ...

and the Yellow Indiangrass ...

I tried to capture how much the soil and mulch moved in the downpour last night, but it defied the camera's eye. Suffice it to say everything got scrubbed clean on the Rocky Road ...

And so it was that I pondered green along with the Kindred Spirits (#Ragmates2019) in Jude Hill's Patchwork in Perspective.

My first impulse was to pull out the luscious package of cloth purchased from Fiber on a Whim last year, a study in green ...

But after watching Jude wander through her scraps, I took a quick look at this relatively tidy bin (which I was the result of organizing my cloth while waiting for class to begin) ...

and then ultimately decided to root through the small scraps ...

Given how much I use green (my grandkids can tell you it's my favorite color), it was no great surprise that, in the end, it felt like I just won the lottery ...

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Recipe: Topping for a deconstructed fruit crumble

1 Tbs softened butter

1 Tbs cinnamon sugar

2 Tbs flour

2-4 Tbs homemade granola

Mix together and crumble onto a sheet of parchment paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned and crunchy (I gently nudged the crumbs every five minutes or so as they baked).

Use as a topping on fresh fruit and ice cream ... or just nibble (I did both).

Addendum

10 thoughts on “Storytelling”

I love seeing what all of those scraps look like together! That is the most fun part for me! I’d love to have one of those wall maps with pins of where everyone lived! Then it would make more sense to me Stay dry!

Liz A

May 5, 2019 at 1:25 pm

I was truly amazed at what emerged from the scrap bin … and staying dry will be a challenge with rain in the forecast all next week! May it be sweet and steady and slow …

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Hi LA – sounds like the storm was quite fierce – but that rain would be most welcome. We are also having heaps of rain in our country of flood and drought – fortunately today has bee a big blue sky day – glorious. The sculpture looked grand in the garden. Go well. B

Liz A

May 5, 2019 at 1:28 pm

Barry – there’s something magical about manmade metals rusting into oblivion as the plants grow all around …

Here’s hoping both ends of our world receive the blessing of rain without attendant floods …

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oh wow those greens are gorgeous, and not just the fabrics

Liz A

May 5, 2019 at 5:18 pm

Thanks Saskia … we are indeed awash in green … stay tuned for a picture walk post

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beautiful portrait of spring in your world!

Liz A

May 6, 2019 at 6:52 pm

Mo – it’s spectacular this year … I’ve got a picture walk post in the pipe, so more to come

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Almost four inches of rain in a single night is really a lot! And that map of lightening. Wow! I’ve been pawing around in my bins for greens too. That’s a nice handful you’ve got there. I’m re-impressed with just how many shades of green there are!

Liz A

May 9, 2019 at 4:24 pm

Dee – and the rains keep coming … amazing how all the greens “go” together

Monday, March 19, 2018

Inch by inch

Nancy's question yesterday led to a picture walk around our five-acre homestead in hopes of providing some answers.

Our land was choked with brush and cactus when we arrived in 2010, much like this undisturbed back corner ...

We have spent the past eight years clearing brush in hopes of encouraging the return of native prairie grasses such as little bluestem, sideoats grama, and yellow Indiangrass, with much success. It has all been done with hand-held tools (clippers and loppers), no herbicides ever ...

The debris is then put in rows of compost that act as berms to slow flood waters along vulnerable areas ...

plus a cover of dead leaves, grass and/or wood mulch to keep things dark and damp ...

After a couple of years (we are patient), we take off the dried-out cover, put that at the bottom of a new compost pile and congratulate ourselves on the resulting soil (hard to see, but there's a 2-3" mound of soil here) ...

The rock gardens are in closer to the house and Don's current project involves taking away all the brush from a rocky area ...

while leaving desirable plants like this thimble flower and mealy blue sage undisturbed ...

unearthing loose rock for a planting bed ...

that can be filled with GeoGrower's Thunder Soil ...

then planting natives (here a bush germander) ...

and finishing the whole thing off with a covering of GeoGrower's Magic Mulch ...

plus the occasional wire cage as needed because deer-resistant doesn't mean the critters won't take a taste at times ...

Needless to say, there's a lot of sweat equity in our landscape, but what's good for the garden is good for the gander (not to mention the goose).

Monday, February 26, 2018

Alchemy

Spring is coming to the Hill Country after a hard (for us) winter ...

and so, as I am wont to do, I walked the land. Then returned to find this post

https://itscrowtime.wordpress.com/2018/02/27/martis-pennant-for-the-dream-is-on-its-way/

over at Mo's blog. Marti's pennant of cloth dyed from the land and her words invoking alchemy.

Coincidentally, before I walked, I had begun my own dye-play using windfall galls from the live oaks, their previous inhabitants long since gone. I wrapped the galls in thrifted linen, tying them off with a variegated thread that I hope will bleed. Then dipped the whole in warm black tea and hung the results in the Texas persimmon ...

Note: this was spectacularly unsuccessful!

After which I walked, surveying our latest prickly pear cactus whacking ...

the end product of which will be more berms ...

within which the alchemy of sun and rain will disintegrate the grass-topped mounds into the black gold of compost ..

Likewise, the mistletoe-choked cedar elm has been safely downed and chipped by arborists, soon to line the trails that meander through our land ...

Walking down the east trail I came to the cactus corral ...

Once a bare patch clotted with cactus, it is now full of grasses and the bright green promise of thimble flowers.

The burn pit is also full of brush cut back to make way for more prairie grasses ...

Beyond it, the floodplain is beginning to bloom ...

As my eye scanned the land seeking the first golden eye, it caught instead on an intriguing spiral of stone ...

Nearby, the last remnants of a much-needed rain ...

A flicker of color led me to the corner of the property where surveyor's tape fluttered ...

marking the edge of the land now owned by our someday next door neighbors, our bid having been too little to secure the acreage for ourselves.

But we have more than enough here and always there is something ...

Picking up the empty shell, I wondered at its one-time inhabitant. Had it perished on the droughted floodplain? How ironic those two words are. But water is the key to our land of flood and drought.

Which is why the avian font (Barry's term, much more appealing than "bird bath") is drunk dry by the deer as often as not ...