A Couple of New Faces

March is always so busy here...Not only is it baby animal time and blooming gardens, it's also income TAX time. I'm a CPA and a tax CPA at that so there is absolutely no rest for the wicked at this time of the year. And it's really hard to squeak time to post. But I thought I'd better get some updates posted, or all the new news will be old news.

There are a couple of new faces in the duck pen -and they're not ducks. I was trying so hard not to increase our menagerie's size prior to our big move, but I succumbed. I just can't help myself. It seems I just have to read the Craigslists farm ads. And there was this ad for a pair of splash bantam cochins -just what I have been wanting. And here they are now:

Meet Harry and Ginny (my daughter is a huge Harry Potter fan and thus christened them).

Harry is quite the ham....

"Did you get my good side" he asks?

It's a little harder to get a pic of Ginny, it seems Harry has to sneak in...see him?

"It's all feathers," says Ginny.

Way too Early For this

It's the first week of March and the trees are bursting into bloom, Spring flowers are blooming,the grass is greening up and the war starts again.

This winter has been very mild. We haven't had a few days of freeze at all, just a couple of nights that dipped below freezing. I swear, I probably could have grown tomatoes outside this winter. This lack of a good freeze is not good. This is what happens:

Can you see it? Maybe I need to get a little closer...

Now I can see them clearly.

Arggh! It's way too early for pest wars!

These are in my Sultan plum tree. I've already removed and sprayed one nest. Today I found another. I'm using my organic bug soap from last year on these. It seems to stop them but I'm not sure if it's actually killing them (I need to go back and check). This plum tree produces the most tasty plums though I've only got to sample one lone plum split between me and my daughter. Last year we had no plums due to the storms blowing off all the blossoms and the fruit from the few that did set, also got blown off. The tree is covered with blooms this year and I'd really like to harvest a few plums.

I don't know if this cocoon is related to the caterpillars above or not. I thought I'd try to look up and see if it is before I removed it. The last thing I want to do is perpetuate more of these pests.

And so it starts another Texas gardening year!