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For some reason, I got it into my head that this was some non-woody stemmed variety of hibiscus, but now I am really not so sure.
Here's another photo, that will probably be of no help whatsoever, but if it is, then help a girl out with an ID, please. There's a rather leggy little assemblage of them behind the shed-that-will-one-day-be-a-greenhouse.
Alrighty, I'm off to the HOPE Farmer's Market to learn how to build a solar dehydrator. Whee!
Not me, the trees. To be more specific, my crepe myrtles are being denuded by an extremely diligent colony of leafcutter ants.
I didn't even know we had leafcutter ants! I thought leafcutter ants lived in...I don't know...Borneo, or somewhere equally remote and/or exotic.
See that green trail all along the fence? It isn't grass; it's a very long trail of partially cut leaves.
See?
It starts at the base of the crepe myrtle on the north side of our house, runs along the length of the house, curves around the back of the house, crosses a cement walkway, crosses an expanse of grass, goes underneath the fence along the south side of the house, and stops at the street. I'm assuming the trail originally crossed the street and the leaves have since been blown away.
The ants are fascinating to watch and their industry is staggering. They harvest the leaves to feed to a fungus they farm down in the colony. The fungus helps compost the leaves and provide food for the ants. They carry the leaves an astonishing distance. A couple of weeks ago they were working on a different crepe myrtle on the south side of the house and carrying those leaves quite a distance around the driveway, as opposed to a much more direct route across it. I don't think it's the heat of the cement they are avoiding either, because they walk on the driveway, just all the way up to the top, cross it there, and then all the way back down!
I'm hoping they don't completely decimate my garden and am only slightly heartened by the fact that when they were actively harvesting leaves off the other tree last week, they seemed to reach some agreed upon stopping point that left a fair amount of leaves on the tree.
Bill Mollison, the bewhiskered grandpappy of permaculture, when describing a garden beset upon by slugs, declared there was no slug problem, but rather a duck deficiency.
So, channeling Bill, I now have to determine the deficiency and shift the balance, but soon, because before you know it will be fall and I have trees to plant!
Have I mentioned that the new house has a dedicated arts and crafts workspace? It is truly awesome not to have to spend the precious little time I actually have to be creative setting a project up and then cleaning it all up just so we have somewhere to eat dinner.
Ahhh, project overload. I love it.
From left to right:
The crumpled up dark fabric is a skirt my daughter is upcycling into something a little more her style.
There's a painting in the works, again courtesy of my creative girl.
A little ziplock bag of clay being revived with some water so I can "make snakes" with the boy at a moment's notice.
In the foreground, a reupholstery project which deserves its own post.
The orange knitting is going to be a pouf, very much like this one!
Some of the balls of yarn are resting on what will soon be shelf supports in the linen closet (a previous tenant removed them in an act of sheer brilliance). I need to paint them.
The little white unit is a wall shelf with hooks I picked up at Savers, thinking it might work in one of the bathrooms, as neither has a medicine cabinet and/or enough storage space. It will not work in either bathroom, so it will go in my daughter's room. 11 year olds are always amassing "collections" and she needs some "display space". It's in the middle of a paint job.
Sewing machines! Ambitiously left on the tables, as if I'm going to actually get to use them one day soon!
Right now they are apparently a place to lay un-mailed packages.
I need to do something about the doorway to the right. It's a very big closet/pantry/laundry room that came with very ill-fitting bi-fold doors. It needs a curtain or something. And I need to put a little piece of wood trim or something between where the tilework ends and the wood floors begin.
Oh! And I kept those bi-fold doors, because I think they will make an excellent set of low benches for somewhere outdoors. Going with the re-used door theme.
It feels good to be busy, even if I don't get quite as much uninterrupted creative time as I'd like.
Our current greywater system: a five gallon bucket and a watering can. There's also a dishpan sporadically involved. It's a slipshod effort, but it waters the few edibles we've got in the ground twice a day. It's not going to make a dent once we ramp up food production out there, and if you've ever tried to carry a five gallon bucket of water, you know it sloshes all over the place unless you slow your pace to a crawl. Even if we're just using the smaller watering can to drain the bath, it's easier to carry, but you're in and out of the house, dripping water on the floor: time consuming, not to mention work.
I want a real greywater system, pipes diverted directly out into the garden and all that, but it is proving a bit much to wrap my head around. In theory, I'd love to spend some time figuring it out and then we'd do it ourselves. I like design problems and the sense of accomplishment when you have created something with your own hands, but on the other hand, we're in a drought - I need to be conserving and recycling as much water as possible right now, not the months from now after I've bumbled around with library books, youtube videos, the wrong sized pipes, etc.
For now, I'm just researching and lugging buckets, but I'm feeling so impatient!
I took a bunch of "before" photos the other day. At 107 degrees, it's really too hot to get started on the "afters".
Actually, that didn't stop Nate from planting a few beans. They were doing alright, until he left for a business trip the day after transplanting them into a freshly prepared bed. By noon that first day, the leaves were all shriveled up! Was he really going to come home to find I'd killed his happly little seedlings?
Not if I could help it. I moved aside the mulch to feel the soil and was surprised to find it moist and relatively cool. Clearly the sun was just too strong for these babies.
Next year, I'll know better. Next year, I'll let something tallish and spindly grow along the outside of the fence - a nursemaid, if you will. Amaranth? Milo? Maybe just some pretty flowers to attract beneficials to the garden?
This year? Old threadbare sheet, some chicken wire and a couple of clothespins to the rescue! It's really not pretty, but those little seedlings are H-A-P-P-Y.