May Day, May Day

Interestingly, I have been monitoring the "perfect storm" that has just hit my dear home of Cape Cod when I found myself in my own mini "perfect storm".  I am about to have some minor surgery on a leg, in about an hour for that matter,( I am writing this at a military base while I wait, ergo no pictures today), and I will have to stay off my feet for a few days.  I have been saving up all the blogs that are clogging my brain and had hoped to write them while I was in a forced to be inside, when my dear computer started making distress noises and now is in more of a need of a doctor than I am.  And of course the irony is, being home bound for a week means I can't take it anywhere to get it fixed.  So, this is just a short blog to explain why I am not blogging!

It has been an out of body experience watching "Nemo", and by the way, when did they start naming winter storms?  I skyped with my daughter in Maine and got treated to scenes of blowing snow; I watched the weather channel and saw pounding surf and shots of sideways snow, then stepping out the door into 70 degree weather, I saw that the first flowers, the "wind" flowers are already coming up!  The rest of the world takes this in stride but for me it is just mind boggling even though this is my second February and I should begin to understand that means spring here.  Still, old expectations die hard. 

The Texas weather has been admittedly gorgeous!  Not hot, not cold, just right, 60's and 70's which are my idea of perfection.  It sets off crazy over-zealous planting ideas.  I had to come to the base with my husband and while I wait for my appointment I filled the car, for the second time this week, with native bushes, flowers, and even small fruit trees.  They are so amazingly affordable at this nursery that it seems a shame not to try some and, of course, they look lovely now.  What is the nursery man's motto?  "We grow 'em, you kill 'em", which is about right in my experience.  So they are all shiny and green and looking grand now, but we shall see who holds up through a Texas summer.  They stock mostly natives so that is good, but some of my tried and true natives I put in last year seem to have gone belly up over the winter.  If you don't succeed at first...

The hardest part of such misplaced optimism is the work it will require to "plant" them.  Think some dynamite would be helpful in my box of garden tools, or at least a pick and axe and willingness to swing them.  We are on the Edwards Plateau, almost pure limestone with a thin skin of soil.  However, our personal yard slopes down towards a creek and the soil of the hill luckily settled on the bottom half of the yard, so you can actually dig there.  But whatever you put there will have not only soil but unrelenting sun. But I, once again, will naively believe the tags that say these dears were born and bred here and should love the sun.  We shall see.  But it is spring and hope, as they say, springs eternal so why not.

Well time to scrub up and get to surgery.  In an extra measure of caution they seem to recommend that the patient scrub up with the same thing the doctor does. I am lucky my husbands office has a shower for after walking the dog and messing around with plants I might have picked up a microbe or two. And if a miracle happens, and the computer fixes itself, I hope this week will see some true nature blogs, not just stream of consciousness writing, be published.   We shall see. To friends on the Cape, I am praying no real damage happened although I am sure the beach is greatly re-altered. And I am sure that you will tell me all about it when  you can.