Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Cockatiel Eggs

We got our little babies, the cockatiels, a little over a year ago. At the time we were told that they were about a year old. Just the other day it laid two eggs!
We're going to give her a nest soon so she has some place to put her eggs other than the bottom of the cage.

Tree Moth

We usually have small moths visit us but as I was watering the front yard area I plashed the oak tree and down fell a large moth. It fluttered a little, I say fluttered because the wings were so large but it eventually settled down and let me take a picture.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Updated

Well, as I feared, the bird of paradise sprouted and promptly died. It is being buried in the compost pile with everything else.
The kaffir lime tree has almost doubled in size in the last two weeks! I don't know what made it want to grow so vigorously but I refuse to complain. I checked to make sure it wasn't a waterspout and I even used a few of it's leaves in a red curry dish (beef) a few days ago.
My kitchen compost bin has gotten a lot of egg shells recently due to a lot of baking, but the recent eggs I have come in contact with had to be thrown away. No, they weren't the recalled eggs in the news recently but they were the eggs of my sweet little cockatiel Lacy. She laid two of them. They both cracked on the cage bottom since she doesn't have a nest. I plan to remedy that soon.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Bird of Paradise

I had just about given up on them ever sprouting but this week I noticed what I thought was a blade of grass popping up in a starter tray that I had just about abandoned. I didn't remember planting grass but I figured that it had come in some time when I had gone outside and planted itself like the rest of the weeds.
Yesterday I decided to look up what I had planted there since it wasn't growing like I thought grass should. Come to find out it was a bird of paradise seed and the green blade is actually a rolled up leaf coming up for the first time. The seed was probably over three years old since I got it in Hawaii nearly three years ago. Who knows how long it was on the shelf.

Now all I have to do is wait until it has a couple leaves and transplant it into a decent size pot. The biggest problem is keeping it away from the cats long enough for it to live.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

St Augustine Die Back

A coworker was telling me about her St. Augustine dying back in her back yard. Mine does the same thing when the heat gets to be a little too much. As far as I can tell it just needs a little more shade in really hot weather. Unfortunately so do most of the plants around here. Fortunately it has been a rather cool summer with only August really heating up a lot. Probably have a few more weeks of heat before things start producing again. It's at times like these when I wish I had the money to install a real green house with a little climate control.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Kaffir Lime Tree

So far as I can tell it's still growing well. There are several new leaves even since this picture. The rain has come though so that's what I have. I'm not getting my camera wet.

I really should put it in a bigger pot soon so it will have room to grow. I think it's about at the size that the pot will allow.
The same goes for my key lime tree, the only one still alive. It's in a much smaller pot and the size clearly reflects it. Maybe I'll get to it next week or so.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Heat

The heat is once again getting unbearable. Surprisingly the patchouli is doing well as well as the melon plants and tomato plant that seems to have planted itself in one of the beds. I'm not going to complain since we wanted some tomato anyway.
The cats have started sleeping behind the turk's cap. I guess it's one of the shadier spots in the yard. It's also near one of the sprinkler heads and when I turn it on they shoot out of there like nothing.
One of the lavender bushes died. It was planted where the last one died so I think there might be something wrong with the location, bugs or something.