I arrived home on Friday, August 3. I had been gone since Thursday, July 12 (essentially three weeks). Overall, the house and yard are in good shape. The lawn needs to be mowed and the weeds have sought to take over everything. My east neighbors (Morgan/Joyce) had to leave town unexpectedly a couple of weeks before I got home.
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| East Raised Bed - Lots of weeds |
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| Neighbors put some of their potted plants inside my irrigation zone |
The basil is doing great!
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| West Raised Bed |
I "harvested" 14 okra that were probably each over 9" long. I gave them all to Morgan/Joyce, hoping they are not too woody.
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| Okra in overdrive |
The most surprising and depressing thing I found upon opening the connecting hall east shade Saturday morning was one of my chimney caps wedged between the main house and the sunroom.
It came from the southwest chimney. This is the second time that cap has blown off. The first time was probably seven or eight years ago. At that time, we had a new aluminum cap made and the chimney was tuck pointed. Between then and now, we had the cap on the northwest chimney blow off.
Upon further inspection, it appears we were very lucky. Two bricks came down with the cap and narrowly missed smashing a sunroom window. One did hit the window frame and the limestone sill, breaking off a corner.
Today, I had the first of two companies come out to give me an estimate. I can see another brick sitting, apparently unsecured, at the top of the chimney. We also sustained some gutter damage right above the Mother-in-law room balcony.
The fish seemed to have survived, for the most part. I had three fish in each of the vases inside. One, the west cylindrical one, only had two when I got home. Later, Morgan told me that he had found a dried-up caucus on the deck when he entered the sunroom about a week after I had left town. I'm not surprised. I filled both vases to the brim and was concerned the fish might actually jump out. One did...thinning of the herd I guess.
Before I left town, I put a flow dissolving feed block in each of the inside vases and two in the pond itself. Each block was advertised to be able to feed 5-10 fish for 14 days. I fished the two blocks out of the inside vases. Each had been "used" by less than 50%. The vases also had a couple of small Marimo Moss balls in them. The 17 moss balls I had put in the pond back on June 1 are all gone...eaten. I ordered four giant and one bag of 10 small moss balls. They arrived today. I put the four giants in the pond, a couple of small ones in each inside vase. This left about 16 small for future use. They are in a vase sitting on the sunroom hearth.
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| Remaining feed blocks from the inside vases |
The Purple Fountain beech is dead. I wrote a note to John (landscaper) asking what he suggests I replace it with.
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| Dead beech |
The surviving peppers (I didn't think any survived) are doing well. It does not appear any of the jalapeño pepper plants survived.
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| Santaka pepper |
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| Peppadew |
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| Bell pepper |
I've been pulling weeds on and off for the past week. It is starting to look better.
I was very impressed with the growth of the Acalypha hispida (chenille plant) that I got during the MoBot class in June. It is at least twice the size it was. I was concerned it would not make it but, apparently, it liked the south Texas weather where it stayed while I was gone.
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| Surplus moss balls |
The moss balls are very low maintenance. You don't have to feed them, they don't even need air.
