In Loving Memory of Sierra Elaine Montoya

We woke up this morning to find that our Sierra passed away during the night. She's been with us for over 10 years and she was a wonderful pet to us. We will miss her terribly but we are thankful that we were able to let her experience a little piece of dog heaven out in the country at the end of her life. She never really did like the city.  

I'm going to miss rubbing that belly

and her beautiful smile.

Fleck is taking it a little hard too and I imagine it's going to take all of us a little time to get used to not having her around.
 

She was a horrible gardener but she was enthusiastic 

I'm glad she got to meet a goat once in her life.

I don't know what else I can say right now. She took incredible care of me through the last 10 years, she was goofy, excited, funny, sweet and she was my best good friend. 

Gidget's Garden moves to Elgin

It's official. We are now residents of the great county of Bastrop, next to an adorable little town called Elgin 30 miles east of Austin, Texas. We loved the home and property as soon as we saw it. It's 8 acres and has about 80 pecan trees, a few pears, some figs and more.

This is Sammy, a very friendly neighbor dog who greeted us every time we went to see the property before it was officially ours. Unfortunately Sierra's grumpy behavior keeps his visits limited now.

"Howdy Folks!"

The house is a two bedroom, two and a half bathroom that's 30 years old and in really decent shape. It was a bit of a cosmetic nightmare for our tastes but the floor plan is incredible! We did end up living here through a minor remodel but we made it through with surprisingly little conflict or issues and it's basically all done now. We just need to finish unpacking.

We had a lot of plumbing things to do, we added a french drain on the side of the house, we removed the acoustic ceiling with glitter, painted  the wood paneling, insulated the attic, added a propane tank, fixed the septic tank and some other random things. We also replaced all of the carpeting with tile or laminate, except for the garage, we just pulled out the carpet in there.

This is the first carpeted kitchen I have ever seen in my life. The bathrooms were also carpeted.

New tile in kitchen

Old living and dining room

New dining room

New living room

The property has a nice deep water well, water spigots all over, a previous garden bed, all the trees, a barn, etc. I could go on and on but I'm about to take you on a photographic tour anyway. I have no concrete plans as of yet because I am still taking it all in and discovering new things about the place every day. 

Our first night was spent on a mattress on the concrete floor while in awe of the most incredible thunderstorm I have ever personally witnessed. I was so exhilarated, I didn't have enough sense to be scared. All it brought was pea sized hail but after the tornadoes in Oklahoma and the flooding nearby here in Texas I am grateful all that crazy weather has been passing us by. We've had beautiful hot sticky days with just a little rain since that first night.

A wall of water coming off our house during the thunderstorm. 

We did discover that we have the perfect set up to harvest rainwater for the garden so we can conserve our well water as much as possible. There are so many projects like this one. Now is the time to step back, make a list and prioritize. 

We made Gidget stay inside for a full 2 weeks before we let her outside. 

"What do you mean I can't go look at my garden? This is ridiculous!"

We have barn swallows nesting under our back patio so you can imagine the windows facing that way were Gidget's favorites. There are all kinds of other critters running around everywhere so Gidget was getting really impatient.

Baby barn swallows (I did not know that until someone on Facebook told me)

I decided to pick this guy up and he promptly peed on me.

When I finally let Gidget out she went right across the back yard to this monster plant to do some exploring. The red cardinals seem to love it and I have been asked if it's a honeysuckle but I don't know. I haven't had enough time to figure that out yet. Whatever it is, it's getting a major haircut soon.

Possible honeysuckle where red cardinals live.

Gidget is taking her time and cautiously exploring more and more of her garden everyday but 8 acres is a lot for one cat to manage. There are copperhead snakes, rats, mice, and vermin of all sorts that Gidget is not accustomed to dealing with. She's had the luxury of living indoors and receiving high quality kitty tuna at her beck and call for too long. She'll never make a really good mouser so we went ahead and hired 3 garage cats to help her out.

Cats in the cupboard

Gidget likes the idea of living in the house eating tuna whilst her minions live in the garage and eat vermin. There are 2 boys and a girl that Farmer D named Harry, Ron and Hermoine. Harry is in the back of the cupboard and I'm hoping most people will pick up on Ron being the redheaded one. 

Gidget says "Enough about them! Let's go conquer my garden."

This fence separates our back yard on right from our pasture on left.

This is the west side of our house looking at the pecan trees that line our driveway in the distance.

The old garden bed. You can see a few of our earthboxes off to the left. That's all for our garden right now.

Gidget's favorite tree. This week anyway.

It's a mulberry. Yummy!

East side of house

The pole barn out yonder

Looking at the yard from inside the pole barn. There's a large pasture on the right.

A big old pecan tree in the back of the property

Looks like we have hogs in the way back.

The abandoned train cars at the rear edge of our property. Way out yonder.

Lots and lots of wood on the property. Makes me worry about snakes.

These are the neighbor's gorgeous horses. They like to watch me drink my coffee in the morning.

We're planning on using this shed as our chicken coop. We also have 2 garages and multiple other storage areas so we don't need a shed. It's close to the house without being too close and it backs up to our pasture.

A priority project; turn this into the best little hen house in Texas!

Well that's all for now. We'll keep you updated and bring you more later.

The Natural Gardener Austin, TX

We didn't take a single plant with us from Golden Hill when we moved to Texas. Letting go of over 150 potted plants was such a difficult experience and up until a few days before we moved I actually thought I was going to be able to take a couple with us. Reality hit when we couldn't even fit our patio set, refrigerator or last remaining bookshelf into our moving container. No plants for us, we are going to have to start completely from scratch. 

Gidget asks, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Gidget and I especially have been missing dirt and plants so when I happened to be searching through the radio dial one Saturday morning and came across a talk show about local organic gardening, I was overjoyed. If we can't have our own plants right now then we can start to learn about the local problems and successes of our new zone from The Natural Gardener. Listening to John Dromgoole help people with organic solutions to their gardening challenges made me feel like I was back in San Diego at City Farmers Nursery with Bill Tall, my dad away from dad.  

Naturally, I went to see The Natural Gardener nursery at my first opportunity and I was blown away.  If you live in the Austin area and have not been to visit, I highly recommend it, even if you aren't a gardener you will enjoy this little piece of heaven.  

Hours:

• Monday - Wednesday 8 am to 6 pm 
• Thursday 8 am to 7 pm 
• Friday and Saturday 8 am to 6 pm 
• Sunday 10 am to 5:30 pm

Location: 

• 8648 Old Bee Caves Rd. Austin, TX 78735

• 
  

Site map

The 8 acre nursery is so large that it helps to consult the map to get around. It was very cold the morning I was there so I only stayed about an hour but I could have easily spent half a day wandering around. One of the first things that caught my eye was all of the beautiful pottery in every shape and color you can imagine.

I picked up a few small pots that claim to be frost resistant.

I went on a Thursday morning and it was very busy. I did not get a chance to meet John himself but the entire staff was super friendly and they seemed to be very knowledgeable. Since my current garden consists of a small balcony with 4 geraniums (that I bought this day from the Natural Gardener) I didn't really have any major questions. I just enjoyed walking around and looking at everything. Next time I will try going on a Monday or Tuesday to see if it's less crowded.

    

There were many beautiful little gardens like this with native plants and seasonal  color

The variety of gorgeous plants both edible and not was incredible.

This is a red passion vine

I was almost completely overwhelmed and I was wishing I had a scarf and gloves.

I was so happy to see pink jasmine!

So many beautiful plants and I currently have such a tiny balcony

Lots of fruit trees

I cannot express how excited I am about blackberries and all other berries. They aren't easy in San Diego.

This is a magical place to spend some time and it gave me so many ideas about how to set up my own property in the future. 

This is one side of the Microbe brewery. I just love it. I want to sit and read a book. 

There is a beautiful fountain that doesn't look impossible to recreate in my own space.

I don't know if the whole place is a certified wildlife habitat or just this section.

Their vegetable garden was so much fun. It's different than what you would see in San Diego this time of year so it helped me get a better understanding of how the seasons work around here. I've found the "season" is always subjective, it's not like you can set a calendar for the best time to plant. In San Diego I was just starting to develop a helpful instinct about what the weather might do. We're starting all over on that instinct now. It's very different here. 

Gidget reminds me that it rains a lot more, thunders and even hails frozen golf balls here. It's not like that in San Diego. 

They have a mix of raised beds, things going in the ground and some potted plants. 

Corn is already going and it looks like it survived the recent cold.  My mouth waters for corn from the garden.  

Their raised beds are 6 inches. I need to not squat so much so the ones I build will be taller.  

I believe the immediate left was rosemary. The right is oregano! I never made an oregano this big or even close. Wow. 

I love my worms but I will need to learn about composting on a larger scale soon. Looks like I am at the right place.

The animals were my favorite. We can't wait to add hens, a carefully chosen rooster and a couple of dairy goats to our family.

Locking horns

Kidding around

An excellent display of balance.

I would name him Handsome the Horny Goat. But he probably has a great name already. 

Wouldn't give me the time of day.

I'm a complete garden nerd and willing to admit it. If you are too, and if I haven't convinced you to check this place out yet, then you have to visit because there is an entire building dedicated to the Microbe Brewery. There's a polite sign that says employees only but I'm hoping there are exceptions to that rule because I am really excited about learning what is happening in there.

The Microbe Brewery