New Year's Eve @ Rain.
Hiking through McKinney Falls State Park, January 1, 2009.
January 2 - Wandering through Zilker Botanical Garden. This is the path we took. It is also a cool geographical pattern, I suppose made by some burrowing insect.
Loved the neat layout of this vegetable garden.
An idea for a future backyard garden.
This path seems to say to me, "Wander under this majestic tree and find mythical creatures on the other side."
January 5 - We toured the LBJ Museum. Very cool and a good lesson in history.
January 6 - Mom! The long-awaited armadillo photo! These guys are everywhere. They seem rather nonplussed as we wander by, but I hear they're fast and can jump 3 feet in the air.
This is what we love about McKinney Falls State Park.
A picnic area. Further on you would pass the walk-in tent sites.
January 8 - Deb reading outside in the hammock. View from the Airstream window.
Our surveillance system.
January 8 - Another walk through the state park.
January 10 - Elizabeth comes to visit from Richmond! She and Shelley drove up from San Antonio for Heather and George's wedding. Elizabeth completely inspired me with photographic eye. So I took a picture of her taking a picture. :)
Copying Elizabeth, I nabbed a shot of the (yummylicious) Magnolia Cafe sign.
Midnight meal at Magnolia with Shelley and Elizabeth.
Slumber party in the Airstream! Our first overnight guests.
Idg-dawg and her iPod. Even pets are getting hip these days.
Cool DIY inspiration spotted at Zen Cafe. Wok lamps!
A new take on Astroturf.
We wandered through Travis Heights, scoping out eco-homes and modern styles. I got a little carried away with photographing cool fencing patterns.
It did not take much convincing to get Elizabeth to try the goods at Hey Cupcake!
We went to visit Shelley's friend Amanda at Design Within Reach. This is where Elizabeth really inspired me, and we set off on a photo shoot around the shop.
Heather and George's wedding. Obviously my phone's camera could not do it justice!
So I stole one of Heather's dad's photos!
Fun with sparklers after the wedding!
Full moon with a halo that night.
January 11 - Still high off of Elizabeth muse infusion, I turned bored-of-waiting-in-the-car time into a photo shoot.
January 12 - First day volunteering at Johnson's Backyard Garden, our new Austin home. We had just finished planting 8 rows of potatoes.
Brenton, the farm owner, has been putting a lot of work into the farm's infrastructure. This will be one of the new wells.
I was curious and asked to see the bits they use to dig the wells.
Brenton surveys another dig spot.
Last day at McKinney Falls, before we move to the farm. I took a moment to capture the memory of our camping spot.
Look, Jimmy & Carolyn! We put up your lights!
First week on the farm! Deb gets busy with the pressure washer after the volunteers are done with boxing the day's harvest.
Will tills under the cover crops.
Two of Brenton & Beth's kids. Love the serious looks. "Whatcha doin' in my parking space?"
The greenhouse.
Sunset behind the pecan trees. I was running like a fiend to capture the golden mist over the field, but the daylight was faster than I.
January 17 - We took the dogs for a walk along the river. There is a wonderful pedestrian trail system running along the banks within the city.
Deb waits for the big diesel tank to fill.
An empty Amy's ice cream container serves as a doggie water bowl.
Bonus - the farm is walking distance from the Colorado River. After a hot day working in the fields, I took the dogs with me to cool down. Yes, in January.
More irrigation infrastructure projects!
We dug a lot of holes that week. It was particularly dry and dusty. So much so that farm intern Dylan remarked that he would have better luck digging with a Shop-Vac.
We help Brenton, Will and Chalon with a foundation for the sand filter. Chalon is the farm handyman, as well as an ex-motorcycle racer and mechanic, and is full of fascinating stories. Especially the one where he went to Dick's Last Resort in San Antonio, not knowing that the schtick of the restaurant is the abuse they heap on their customers. A server made a lewd comment about a family member, and two brawls later, the police clarified the situation to Chalon. I cannot do the retelling justice here, but I near about fell in the wet concrete laughing!
January 24 - We were walking from the store back out to our truck, and noticed that something looked...wrong. It appeared that a Mazda had attached itself to our hitch. A security guard was busy writing up a ticket as we approached. "Hey there! We're the truck owners!" "I KNOW," she said with a glare, "and you did not park it correctly. Your tow vehicle is hanging out in the middle of the road." "Wait," I replied, "we don't have anything to do with this Mazda!"
The guard pursed her lips. "Hmm. The brake must have given out. I think this car rolled out of its parking spot and onto your hitch!" "Well, someone is going to awfully surprised to find it here." Deb pointed back toward the store. "Those ladies look concerned, I bet it is them!"
And that is how we met two really cool gals. One jack, a crow bar, and everyone jumping on the truck bumper (pictured above), and we got the Mazda off without any further damage. Then we hung out in the parking lot with our new friends for another few hours, having a great time getting to know each other! It turned out to be a great experience.
That's the gist of things up to this point! The day after the Mazda incident, we went hiking in a section of the Austin Green Belt and got ourselves seriously lost. Obviously we got unlost, but we were hiking for much longer than we intended. The dogs really dug it! Afterward we caught "Che: Part 1" at the Alamo Drafthouse. I wish I could bring the Alamo with me wherever we go. They serve food while you watch the movie, and it is really, really good food. They also put on a lot of hilarious events, like sing-alongs, Mystery Science Theater-esque mocking, trailers for movies that never existed but should have, and the best ever ad urging you to not talk during the feature. I will have to sneak in a video camera and capture it, cracks me up! On the farm this week we harvested kale in ridiculously cold temperatures, ugh. Other days we've prepared the site and the materials to construct additional greenhouses. A lot of heavy lifting. A new volunteer has joined us. Lucas, from Germany. He flew over to NYC, bought a wreck of a car and started touring America. He went all the way south to Key West, and then started heading west. At some point his car broke down, so he bought a wreck of a van. He's here with us now because his van is about to break down. He says America is a lot bigger than he expected, and he'll have to go home, renew his Visa, and come back to see the rest! Kindred soul.
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I just had to share this recipe for making seed balls, found on the blog Heavy Petal. First, one recipe makes 300 - tie 'em up into cute fabric and you've got insta gifts. Second, it's guerilla gardening at its best - unobtrusively sprinkle them where public spaces could use some color (just please don't plant invasive species). Third, there's this wonderful story in the comments - "I read . . . that a bloke drove around the countryside throwing the seedballs ever since his wife died." What a beautiful way to actively remember a loved one!
