Peace Place Ranch

With all of the rain we’ve had in the first part of the year Spring is here in force! Everything looks nice…

I need to get started on the pergola for the back porch.. the Texas Summer sun will be her before you know it…

All of the bluebonnet seeds I’ve been collecting and spreading over the years are blooming all over. The entire ranch is covered in bluebonnets now…

My Christmas garden gnome that Lyn gave me is in the zeriscaped garden at the back…

The fountain is close to being done and Chucho loves to sit in it too…

The front yard in lush and green…

The ground cover at the side is lush, flowering and doing well too…

The trees are budding out and flowering, it is a riot of colour around here now…

We’ve had some badly needed rain over the past few weeks… raining again today…

Things are a little greener at last, the sitting tree with refreshed leaves…

The yuccas perked up…

Even the grass and the ‘bonsai’ oaks looked greener…

For some trees the rain came too late…

When I first moved to Austin June was the rainy month with numerous thunderstorms and lightning of great intensity. Flash floods were a fairly common occurrence. Not so much anymore. I also notice that the people who dominated the misinformation about climate change aren’t being heard from much anymore? Why are they all off the hook for their campaign of obfuscation?

While normally pretty dry around here we do have some pretty native plants well adapted to the weather. The garden around my house was well planned by the former owners and planted with hardy low maintenance Texas plants.

A bit of rain last week and some watering has then looking pretty nice!

Recently there was an article about Mike Murphy and his hill country birdwatching ranch. One bird he said he seldom sees is the painted bunting… well I have them here! While they are pretty shy birds, I regularly see both males and females at the feeder. I managed to get a photograph this morning from behind my home made blind.

The painted bunting on the feeder, they are very colourful birds! When I first spotted them I thought they might be some of the wild parrots the Town Lake is famous for.

My temporary bird blind.. several camo zelts buttoned together.

Here’s the start of a bit about my own little slice of peace and quiet; my ranch in South Austin. Here’s the ranch house…

And here a a few critters mowing my lawn…