If you hadn't noticed I have not been posting lately. The brain and body are on the fritz. I have exactly 7 - count 'em 7 - days to get my shit together for this 3 week road trip and I'm not even close to being there. 
Crazy Harry !!!
I know that y'all will want photos of Round Top and all of the goodies and awesome people we will meet. Of course Padre Island as well. And I'll throw a few photos of the corn fields and pump jacks between here and there in. But first I need to take care of gettin' us there so I'm fixen to go bonkers. And when did planning for Halloween for the kids become something that you had to do in September???? Sheeeze.
I called the hotel that we are staying at on Mustang Island and they were not phased at all by Ike. Let's pray that there won't be any more hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico this season. I can't even imagine the loss that many people are feeling right now. I admit I am feeling very guilty for getting ready to go on vacation to the untouched beaches of Texas when just a couple of hundred miles up the coast there is so much devastation.
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Feeling Extremely guilty - how do you tell a 3 and 4 year old (that have talked nonstop about the beach for the past 6 months) that we can no longer go because others are suffering? I hope that in some way us not cancelling our plans and putting a little money into the Texas economy we will help - albeit so small.
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Ok - 'nuff said. Comments? Suggestions? Going to go write a check to the Red Cross - even tho it won't even begin to help. What was that about the economy????
Last week I was tending to my roses - my very first rose garden to be exact. Taking off all of the dead leaves and deadheading the spent flowers, and giving them their last meal of the growing season. As I was pulling off a yellow leaf on the inside of the plant something next to my hand moved - not a little something but a rather large something.
Can you see what made me jump?
Lucky for her she is not known to be a "pest" as she is a predatory insect related to the cricket, is active only at night, will only eat leaves if other "food" is not found. And they tend to remain on the same bush or tree their entire life. I shouldn't say she was lucky, only because I can not kill anything. I would have had to drive her out to one of the agro fields and let her go.
We learned all about giant grasses and got to walk through many areas in the gardens that were full of these beauties.
I did not know that bamboo and corn are members of the grass family.
After exploring all the wonderful grasses that the gardens had to offer we went back in to the classroom and planted our own pots with 3 types of grass. Prairie grass, wheat, and corn.
After class the girls wanted to do a little water coloring of the grasses that they learned about. This Summer they have been obsessed with painting.
Of course we had to have our weekly 
Isn't this display of Mexican Feather Grass incredible? Makes me want to go home and rip out the darn lawn that just eats up water and takes energy to mow. Wonder if the 
I'm pretty sure that I got a lot more out of this class than the girls did. But the important part was that we spent the day together and got to be outside. Before we know it the snow will return and we will be doing inside things.
