Two Month Catch Up

Well, after not blogging for 2 months, I suppose it's time for a little catch up!

At the end of August, my brother came to town to help us move Mom into her brand new house.  We spent 2 days moving, 2 days laying sod and parts of 2 days setting up stuff like appliances and electronics.  My poor brother- we always put him to work when he comes for a visit.  Maybe one day we'll let him rest :)

We also had kitchen cabinets delivered for an upcoming remodel.  They lived in the garage for a while, but we moved them into the dining room after ripping up that carpet and clearing out space.  They're supposed to be adapting to the temp and humidity of the house for several weeks before installation.  We don't plan on starting the work until December, so we get to stare at them for a while longer and dream of the day when they are in place.  They are out of the boxes now, but I'm saving those pictures for later.

Of course school started at the end of August too, so there were lots of activities and meeting to attend.

The beginning of September brought us the whole ordeal with Titus.  I'm sure most of you have kept up with us on facebook, but here's the short version.  Titus is battling an auto immune disease of some sort (we think).  We don't know for sure what caused it, but it made him very anemic to the point of needing a blood transfusion.  He went to the vet 12 times between Sept 3 and October 2.  He has been responding to treatment, but there have been several complications along the way.  We're also dealing with lots of side effects from the steroid he is taking.  I'd say overall he's about 75% of his normal self right now.  Treatment will continue for a while, so we're just taking it one day at a time.

Our garden is dwindling, but we're still harvesting a few things.  Peppers, okra, honeydew and tomatoes are still producing.  Sweet potato plants look healthy, but we haven't dug any up yet.  Everything else is done which is good because we don't have much time to spend out there these days.  I'd like to try some cool season crops someday, but it's not happening this year.  It's been nice having enough tomatoes to do some canning.  We've also stocked our freezer with various fruits and veggies to use throughout the winter.  This was definitely our most successful year of gardening in TX!

Tomatoes thawing, soon to be peeled

Garden 8-26-13

Garden 10-9-13

Our only 2 pumpkins from the garden this year.

And most recently, we had nearly 50 people out to our house for a cookout/hayride/campfire/archery evening.  These are students, faculty and family involved in biology related research at ACU.  What a fun group!

Most of the group, a few spouses skipped out

Guadalupe River State Park

Last week, Josh and I took off 3 days and headed down to the Guadalupe River.  We like to avoid the weekend crowds, and this turned out to be a great trip!  We stayed at Guadalupe River State Park at the perfect little campsite- #45.  We tried out a new portable air conditioner for our tent and even used air mattresses for the first time.  I think we're getting old!  

We don't have any pictures from our first day because we were in the river most of the day.  We found a couple of nice spots where the river was deep enough to swim, and the water felt great!  Then we rested in our cool tent until around 7:30pm when we decided to cook dinner.

For our second day, we headed to Canyon Lake with the canoe.  We didn't get to launch from the point we were hoping, so we had a lots of extra paddling to do.  Eventually we found the perfect swimming spot.  There were rocks at the edge to rest on, and then the rocks dropped off pretty steep into the water.  This meant that we could jump off of the rocks into the water without hitting anything.  Titus had a blast at this spot and completely wore himself out.  He would retrieve his toy and then start crying if we didn't throw it again very quickly.  The water was so pretty and clean too- not at all like the lakes around Abilene :)

Titus is ready to play!

Splash!

Our little swimmer

Such a relaxing spot

Later in the day, we headed to the other end of the lake.  We explored the spot right below the dam where the cold water from the bottom of the lake comes out.  It was freezing but felt so good!  Titus was gulping water at this spot and enjoyed some play time with Josh.  Apparently, this Guadalupe Park is the southernmost sustainable trout fishery in the nation.

Beautiful, cold water

Titus likes to bound through the water to retrieve his toy.

Josh braving the cold water- brrr!

Happy dog with his best friend

We also visited the dam area since we were nearby.

Canyon Lake from Overlook Park

Canyon Dam

A roadrunner zipped right by Josh as he was taking the previous pictures.

On our 3rd day, we decided to explore New Braunfels before heading home.  We ended up finding Landa Park which is one of the best city parks we've visited.  Lots of shade trees along the Comal River made walking around very pleasant. 

Josh and Titus in front of  Founder's Oak- a 300 year old tree.

Founder's Oak

We had to take this picture since Titus' middle name is Meriweather even though it's spelled differently.  (Titus is named after Meriweather Lewis of Lewis and Clark because Titus is such a great explorer and he was born in Lewiston, Idaho.)

We had such a great time on this trip and hope to explore more of this area in the future!

July Recap

I really slacked off on the ol' blog this month!  Here's a few pictures from the last month- basically  just wildlife and gardening.

Turkeys on our property.  The one on the right has little ones behind her.

Titus dug a hole...

... and stuck his head in it.  He doesn't dig very often, but he was after something this day.

Can you find the fox in this picture?  And look- some water in our pond!

Fox again!

And again!  We think this is one of the young ones we saw earlier this summer.  It likes to play with grasshoppers.

We also found a small turtle in our yard.  I thought he was cute.  We also have baby frogs coming out of our pond now- so fun!

Spaghetti squash.  We think we have 2 different varieties, what do you think? ;)

Spaghetti (made with spaghetti squash) and topped with fried zucchini chips.  Mmm!

Cantaloupe- oh so yummy!

More treats from our garden.  This has been our most successful gardening year in TX!

Oh yeah- I also had a birthday, and our sweet friends made me this lemon cake.  It was soooo good!

2013 Garden, Part 5- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The good news is that we are now harvesting something other than squash!  We've picked tomatoes, cucumbers, honeydew, green beans, okra and bell pepper now!
The bad news is that the grasshoppers and squash bugs are rapidly multiplying and getting quite healthy off our plants.  Here are some pictures.  We'll start with the good :)

Overall the garden looks pretty good.  7-2-13  Potatoes on the left are falling over.

Honeydew, cucumbers and green beans

Our first bell pepper and okra of the year are in this group.

We've got watermelon coming!

Corn is looking pretty good, but something is nibbling on the ends of the cobs :(

Honeydew and cantaloupe are taking over!

Bell peppers are getting big!

Looks like we'll have some nice pumpkins this fall!  This one is about 1 1/2 times the size of a basketball.

Tomatoes are filling up the cages (along with some wandering cantaloupe vines)!

Now for the bad and really ugly...

Cucumber plants are looking pretty pitiful :(

Spaghetti squash is taking a hit too.

I'm surprised we're getting any green beans at all with our plants looking like this!

Squash bug damage to the pumpkins.  So sad.

Even though things are starting to look bad, this is still our best garden so far in Texas.  A huge part of me wishes we had tried raising guineas this year to combat the grasshoppers.  Oh well.  At least the weeds are under control!