Killdeer in the bluebonnets
Before Austin’s shelter-in-place (i.e., stay-at-home) order went out yesterday, I grabbed my camera and hopped in the car with our Italian high-school exchange student to find a nice field of bluebonnets a friend had told me about. We soon located a denim-blue field of dreams.
As it happens, it’s an excellent year for our state flower, and it pains me a little to know that I won’t be making a wildflower safari this spring, my annual ritual. But defeating the coronavirus is a group effort, and I plan to comply. Let’s all work together to shut down this disease!
But back to the lupines. Keeping to ourselves — no one else was around anyway — we carefully stepped around the flowers, she found an open spot to sit, and I snapped her first-ever (maybe only-ever) photo in a patch of bluebonnets. A rite of passage for every Texan, even a temporary one! Now I can rest easy knowing my duty as a host mom is complete. (If you’re wondering, she will be with us until a safe flight home can be arranged for her and other Italian exchange students in the U.S.)
As we were leaving, we flushed a killdeer from her nesting place in the open field. I immediately recognized the fake broken-wing trick she was putting on, dragging one wing along the ground in feigned helplessness in an attempt to lure us away from her eggs or chicks. I never saw her nest, but we backed away and left her in peace. She’s a handsome bird, isn’t she?
Back at home, the garden is coming alive with fresh leaves and new flowers every day. I shared this photo of the Circle Garden — the old stock-tank pond garden — on Instagram the other day, and since then there’s already a lot more color in the center, where Gulf penstemon is blooming.
It’s a big change from the pond that used to anchor the center of the circle, but I like it. Sure, the pond was gorgeous, but it was one more thing to take care of, and I’m looking to simplify these days. If you like it too, yay! And if you don’t, well, you can always install a pond in your garden! xoxo
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Digging Deeper
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I think the Circle Garden looks terrific. When you pulled out the pond, I had my doubts…but now I think you did the right thing. It’s lovely!
Thanks, Laura. A garden is ever-changing, and sometimes we have to help it along depending on where we are in life. 🙂
I’m glad to see your bluebonnets, even if briefly. Best wishes with sheltering-at-home! It’s a weird experience.
For me, working and puttering from home every day anyway, it hasn’t seemed a whole lot different yet, although the house is full of people (husband and kids). It’s when I go out to get groceries that I notice how weird it all is. And I miss visiting friends’ gardens this spring.
glad you were able to snag the requisite bluebonnet photo for your student in the nick of time! our San Antonio blooms have not been nearly as plentiful or robust as yours: go figure…
the circle garden is lovely – well done! and do I spy a relocated bit of blue garden art from the front yard in the background?
now if only you would get busy and do *something* about those leaves!!! 😉
You DO spy a relocated tuteur from the front yard. Lately I just wasn’t loving it out front, so I carried it around the garden during mountain laurel season and parked it under one that was in flower. It was a nearly perfect match, and I knew I’d found its new home.
And OH, THOSE LIVE OAK LEAVES! And now the pollen is starting.
Your garden look great. I like the structure and the negative space the brick provides. It didn’t have that feel with the pond in the center. Interesting.
There’s such a different feel now with plants there instead of the pond. It’s busier as seen at ground level, although not from above, as pictured here. I’m still getting used to the new look!
I also eliminated my pond some time ago…it was 7 by 11 feet and waaay too much upkeep but it was glorious while I was younger and both it and I were waaay prettier. now it’s hosting three miscanthus and a cover crop of rye grass about to be tilled in for the summer. What I do miss about it the most was all the bird life it attracted even though most of the birds were content to eat at the feeders.
To everything there is a season, right, Wendy?