The Texas Garden and Backyard Chickens in September

Lauren

Nice weather is HERE!

I am typing this with the windows open and a 64 degree breeze blowing through the room; it’s heaven. I imagine this relief of the oppression of the hardest to endure season is the same northerners have at the arrival of Spring.

It all pretty much made it through August intact- we’re getting the Fall flush around here and the garden looks great.
Backyard chickens are like Easter 2.0 all year long. It’s all the fun of finding eggs with the added anxiety around if you don’t find them they’ll stink bomb you 2 months later. Fun. This is a surprise nest hidden next to the bridge in the bunny foot grass.
Bougainvillea (can’tbelieveitsspelledlikethat) is looking great. Dying plant in the background is the sesame plant- it’s harvest time for that one!

The first couple of pods resulted in a surprising amount of sesame seeds.

All these decorative plates but NOOOOOO…

I finally pulled the watermelon (one mutant looking melon that cracked before it was ripe) pumpkin (never got any pumpkins outta the bum) and butternut squash vines. I harvested 8 butternut squash the day I pulled out the vines. You know my favorite thing about butternut squash? Growing them. Least favorite? Eating them. It is what it is- I LOVED the massive harvest I got and also all the humble bragging about it.

They all got squash borers again at the end of the season (did not know that could happen) so all the vines started looking like garbage- it was time for them to go. Plus I was DROWNING in all this squash I couldn’t HELP but produce. Whatever else could I have done?

Also in backyard news: Truffle the rooster is GONE!

He was a handsome guy, for sure.

My mom came over on Friday with a page of the classified ads from the local paper- circled was an ad that just said “Roosters for sale” and a phone number. Her theory was if the person was selling them maybe they would take one? I called, and spoke to the nice old man who placed the ad. (Has there ever been a bad “Frank?” All the Franks I’ve ever met have been pretty cool. This old guy was named Frank.) After some initial confusion (“So… you don’t want to buy one you want to give me one?”) He agreed to take Truffle as long as I could drop him off out at his ranch.

This guy was in a cat carrier SO fast after I got off the phone with Frank. Don’t let the door hit you on the cloaca on the way out!

I didn’t let the older girls come with me to drop Truffle off with Frank just in case the place looked like something out of Deliverance, but I shouldn’t have worried about it.

Frank’s ranch was the most idyllic place.

Frank himself was one of my very favorite type of Texans: tall gangly old ranch guy who is just kind and gentle and always happy, who calls every female Ma’am, and who doesn’t have a bad thing to say about anything or anyone. They’re a dying breed but you still run across them every once in a while.

He had a beautiful ranch with cows, a duck pond, geese waddling around and an awesome set up for his 32 chickens. After seeing Truffle he decided to keep him for breeding and not sell him. He also said he’d continue to call him Truffle, which I thought was sweet of him.

As we were heading out he said to call him if our girls ever wanted some of Truffle’s chicks, if that would “mean somethin’ to ’em.” So yeah, big fan of old Frank.

It literally couldn’t have ended better. And it’s so quit in the backyard now! And there has been a precipitous drop in rape back there too! (A 3:1 ratio of hens to rooster is super no bueno)

In other news I’ve been making a concerted effort to cut back on the carbs and up the exercise. (It’s FINALLY cool to take our evening walk again!)

In addition to the evening walks I’ve been going on a couple of dog walks for the Canyon Lake Animal Shelter with my Uncle Don on Saturday mornings. (An idea I got from my Aunt Val. Hi Aunt Val!)

It’s… significantly less idyllic than this picture conveys.

It’s a good workout because it is a nice hilly 1.5 mile route, with the added bonus of an arm workout because few of the dogs are good on a leash. Also they’ll fight with each other if they get too close. Neat!

Whelp, at least we get outta the house. Plus exercise!

And, because of that I can now fit back in my favorite pants! A statement that IMMEDIATELY makes me think of a Chris Rock skit. “You fit in your pants again? You’re SUPPOSED to fit in your pants, dummy!”

I do in fact

Anyway- it is significantly less self critical than the above sounds, I promise. Work in progress but my Covid 19 is down to about my Covid 12-13 at this point.

Cutting down on carbs plays a role in that, along with the uptick in walking. Luckily it’s cooling down because you just CAN’T drink a glass of red wine outside in the heat of summer- has to be beer. It’s a rule. All things in moderation except heroin, so here are a couple of favorite beers I’m still drinking every once in awhile.

One of my long term favorites
Didn’t even notice it was gluten… removed? Whatever that is. It’s a solid citrusy IPA.

Lets see, lets see… what else.

I added a page to the menu on the blog about my book with the affiliate links now that both the Ebook and paperback versions are out. Available here! (Fyi, I get some compensation if you click to it through the link from my blog- turns out I am now legally required to say that. Turns out. It’s $0.59… turns out.)

If one person buys through that link it would pay for 0.0068 of the new AC we just had to buy because ours ate it this past week. So that wasn’t great, but now I also have hopes that the new heater may keep the house warmer this winter (pleasepleasepleaseplease) and that the electric bill will be lower. As I always say with significant home repair expenses: I thoroughly didn’t appreciate being a renter enough, back in the day.

In other news: We’re working on extending the chicken run. And in fact I should go finish the wire because the chickens are HARD on the garden (the digging… so much digging) and I can’t lock them up until that is done.

So: off to do some stapling and then maybe some weeding in all this beautiful weather. Till next time!

4 thoughts on “The Texas Garden and Backyard Chickens in September”

  2. Your landscape looks terrific, Lauren, love the brick and the stone creek and the wonderful plants, if some people have a green thumb, you must have a green hand! Can’t wait to get a copy of your book and that is so keen, about the dog walking you’re doing. Shelter dogs do so much better when they can work off some of that doggy energy. Sounds like things are percolating right along, so glad it’s cooler for you all. And yes, your current weather sound exactly equivalent to the way Minnesotans feel in, oh, early May each year, when we can finally have the windows open.

    1. Appreciate it! And the dog walking does seem like it does them good and it does me good too, to get out on an early morning walk. Always loved the idea when you talked about it!

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