Hosted by Cecily and Mama Geek
If you live in Texas - you get used to the warm weather.
If you live in Texas - you get used to the bugs.
Okay - maybe not this bug! I don't even think you can call this a "bug" - I think it is a CREATURE! The thing is over 6" long and CREEP-Y! This one is dead, but imagine seeing one of these creatures crawling along the sidewalk or up the side of your house - eeeeek! I've had people tell me of how they've had these creatures get in their house!!
If you live in Texas - you get used to the lack of defined seasons and do your best to adjust to the cool mornings that require a sweater and then ... the need to shed that sweater to a tank top ... on that same day's afternoon.
We begin to plant our yards in Texas around the end of March or early in April.
We take our ferns out of our green houses and hang them in the trees or place them decoratively by our front doors.
We plant flowers in the ground and in clay pots that we place on our porches and decks.
We clean our flower beds and plant new shrubs and layer on the cedar mulch to hold in the moisture in anticipation of long, hot summer days.
By the time late July comes ...
Some Texans are clearing out summer petunas and impatients and begonias ... that have seen better days and long since withered and dried up under the hot Texas sun and ... bringing in mums of red and purple and gold.
By the time late August arrives ...
I am tired.
I have watered plants in pots and baskets and flower beds ... for MONTHS!
I have transplanted and pruned ...
I have mulched ...
And ...
I might plant a mum or two, but ...
I am ex-hausted and ... just ready to move on.
By the time September comes around ...
I don't water as often as I should - but, I do what I have to to keep my plants alive.
I no longer transplant, but I still pluck off dead leaves.
I seldom fertilize.
By the time October arrives ...
*sigh*
On the upside ... I have 4 children I can barely feed adequately - keep alive! If it is still warm in Texas by the time October gets here - like it is this year ... honestly --- I am wishing - hoping - praying --- the cold weather will sweep in like a mad arctic northern and kill the plants in my yard - dead! Seven months is well past the time I feel obliged or am even capable of keeping any fern or flower alive.