LONG TIME, NO SEE & DOIN' MY PART

I'd all but forgotten the beauty of a misty morning here in the Hill Country - the way the sun creeps up and catches the low-lying mist that is tucked into all the crevices, and which follows the path of the creek as it snakes in and out of the hills. Of course, you gotta have some water in the creek, and temps well below 107, if you want to glimpse one of these mornings, so it's been a while!

The cantina garden is beginning to come together. They added stucco to the arch yesterday, and the cedar posts have been delivered and dropped into their pockets. Now they just need to be leveled up and mortared in. As with any project, expenses can get out of hand if you're not careful, and we had to do some corner-cutting - make the area a bit smaller than I originally planned - to keep ours under control. Unfortunately, the corners that got cut (literally!) were the areas that got the most sun and would have been best for serious vegetable gardening. However, there are still plenty of sunny pockets scattered about, where I can tuck in all of my favorite herbs, some asparagus or arugula, and a tomato cage and bean trellis or two. Once we get the trees properly pruned, there will probably be even more spots.

The good news is, this will leave me with plenty of space for shade loving ornamentals, and for any funky yard art the Muses and I might produce! If we later get serious about wanting to grow more food than this, we can always add some deer netting around one of the sunny corners, and set up those lovely raised beds John ordered for me a while back. In the meantime, I'm perfectly willing to do my share to support the local economy, by shopping from The Bountiful Sprout, and enjoying the various farmers' markets here abouts. After all, according to Robert Arbor, that's a critical step towards discovering joie de vivre! Don't forget to leave a comment, if you wish to be included in our Monday morning drawing for his wonderful book.