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“Peas in a Pod”

“Please…no more rock tumbling talk…stop already…yawn.”

The day was finally upon us…excited anticipation crackled through the air.

Breakfasts were hurried, clothes were put on back-to-front as we all scrambled out of our back door. It was precisely 10 days 4 hours 36 minutes and 12 seconds since our rocks went into the final phase of their tumbling and polishing, and according to the directions, they should be ready.

The top of the tumbling drum was ceremoniously unscrewed accompanied by a loud trumpet fanfare that was emanating out of my pampas grasses. Eyes darted between us all, air was sucked into nerdy lungs as the top lid was slowly removed…

…even a strange Patch Ent gathered in close.

When the top of the cannister came off there was an audible gasp quickly followed by a collective ewww!

Yes, not quite the shimmering jewels we had in mind, but with a bit of rinsing and cleaning they polished up a treat.

Start to finish in just over a month, the venture has been a true test of patience.

We also have a lot of new and creative ideas as to what will be going into the rotating canister next; toe-nail clippings, sea shells, glass, teeth, Kumo to name a few suggestions of late.

Here is a macro looking through one of the rocks…snort.

Moving on:

Hot days one day,

freezing days the next,

Yes, it is another rather unpredictable winter in Texas.

I almost forgot to mention the bad hair days. As you can see the tooth fairy is having a difficult time keeping up with her incessant tooth dropping…brrr, she can barely make it through a sentence without another one falling out.  At the very least one will protrude out at you at an ungodly angle as she struggles to communicate.

It has been warm enough to wake up the algae in my small pond,

and wet enough to stimulate fresh new foliage on my burgundy canna lilies.

Peas are now growing all over my perimeter fence line like weeds,

and how sweet they are.

The recent precipitation has greened up the Persian ivy,

filled out the loquats with fresh new growth and

lots and lots of fruit.

Lots of shrubs are about to bloom including this mountain laurel,

mock orange,

and my fatsia Japonica.

Gophers are almost ready to be cut back to the emerging new growth,

I think I will wait though until the old growth stops pushing out these unusual blooms. The plant looks like two different plants at this phase.

Finally:

After messing around with an opuntia fruit for some time, stepping on it and prodding it with a stick on the sidewalk, she picked it up, popped it in a plastic cup and added a dash of water…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Betanin in the fruit made a great home-made crimson paint perfect for Valentine’s day pictures.


Stay Tuned for

“A Handful of Sand Dollars”

 

All material © 2012 for eastsidepatch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl xxx.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Gail February 18, 2012, 8:28 pm

    Love the birthday girl picture. However, one of the pictures – the one with the wild hair and no teeth – unfortunately reminds me of some of my relatives in another part of the US.. White trash southern. :)
    Glad to know the fate of the rocks.

  • ESP February 18, 2012, 8:50 pm

    Yes, finally the fate of the rocks revealed, it took a while didn’t it?…Now we have a whole bunch of highly polished, shiny rocks lying around on our back deck and table…there was no mention in the instruction booklet of what you were supposed to do / could do with the rocks post tumbling!..Stupid rock tumbling.

    I am sure Kumo has some creative gastronomic ideas though…Bad Kumo! (Kidding Lisa)

    The teeth, ah the teeth. I hope it all fills in soon for her, otherwise it will be back to a straw and liquid nutrients for a while…and I know how she loves her surf and turf :-) Her hair in that B/W toothless shot only exemplifies her new “gurning” look.

  • AngryRedhead February 19, 2012, 10:01 am

    I use polished rocks as mulch for my potted plants. Heh. And if I ever get my super evil tiger oscar, I would use polished rocks in the tank.

    Now there is an idea…but isn’t it a bit cruel to keep a tiger in a tank with or without the polished rocks. :-)

  • Diana February 19, 2012, 11:28 am

    Your sweet girl outshines all your garden pretties. But I do like seeing the blooms coming on your fatsia. Mine is still a little sad. It sure would be nice if this lovely temperated spring weather would hang around, wouldn’t it? But I’m convinced we will get another freeze before mid-March.

  • ESP February 19, 2012, 4:16 pm

    Hi Diana
    She does indeed.
    My fatsia are full of budsia at this time of yearsia, in fact I have never seen so many.

    I agree with you, we are by no means out of the woods on the frost front…it is a temperate trick designed to fool us and get us prematurely comfortable with planting…well I am not falling for it! Oh no, not this year…NOT THIS YEAR!

  • Les February 19, 2012, 5:33 pm

    After our last batch of rocks had completed the process, something mysterious happened to our tumbler and we have not seen it since.

  • ESP February 19, 2012, 7:47 pm

    Haha Les…I just bet it did ;-)

  • Gardenista February 20, 2012, 9:09 am

    Polished rocks!!! At last!!! In a clear glass vase they will hold bloom stems in place, make a fantastic looking ground cover around a special small plant in a larger bed, are good to hold pot bases up out of water in a pot-with-saucer set up, and are a lot of fun as accents in a terrarium. What can’t you do with polished rocks…

    The toothy issues will pass, probably just in time for Child the Younger to begin his own restocking process. The bad hair days however, have only just begun. Onward.

    Hi TD.

    At last indeed…I am just happy that I am done reporting on the status of the rocks…finally! Thank you for all of your suggestions as to what I could now do with them now.

    You are right on the tooth and hair front, at least five more years of wiggling, premature extractions and reactionary silly walks on my part, plus countless future years of bad hair day moaning…I can hardly wait.

    Never a dull moment,

    ESP.

    Deep breaths….and yes, forever onward.

  • Toni - Signature Gardens February 20, 2012, 11:00 am

    Kumo looks quite comfortable sunning himself smack dab on top of your Mexican feathergrass! Nice to see him sans Victorian collar :-) Keep him away from those beautiful polished rocks! Sure hope a late freeze does not burn those Mt. Laurel blooms — oh (deep breath) the fragrance!!

    Hi Toni.

    Kumo loves nothing better then plonking his body on the top of the soft feather grasses, and he has his particular favorites that are now flattened to the ground. I cannot blame him, I tried lying on one myself the other day and found the experience equally pleasurable, just before I was encapsulated in my very own straight jacket, and driven away from the property.

    I have a feeling that a late freeze is imminent.

    ESP.

  • Pam/Digging February 21, 2012, 11:58 pm

    Weird! Our rock tumbler must have disappeared to the same place Les’s did. We did get one batch out at least.

  • ESP February 26, 2012, 7:50 pm

    Yes Pam, rock tumblers apparently have a nasty habit of ‘disappearing’ to that “I wonder where it went to” place :-)