Oh My Gawd

Well, I started this blog to showcase some pictures of a record-breaking 1" December snowfall, so my friends in Missouri and Canada could mock me. If I had been on Facebook then, I probably would have put the pictures on Facebook and not started the blog.

I just looked over the 10 most recent posts, and boy, are they repetitive. When there's not any snow to take pictures of, the orange trees, hot peppers, and grass are all there is to talk about.

Arrgh! I also noticed I had much more to say in the years I was working part-time at a fairly unchallenging job (2008-2010). Once I had a challenging job, seems like my drive to write had engine trouble.

And I will say right now that my current favorite blog post is the one by The Bloggess about Big Metal Chickens.

So, prepare yourself for the advent of home improvement posts. :: Spoiler Alert:: As soon as our refinance goes through, there will be a new roof for house and workshop, new soffits, painted fascia, and other miscellanea. There may even be some drama, because the electrical wires to the house go across the roof, and they are only a few feet above the roof in spots. Do roofers ever electrocute themselves?

Do blogs self-destruct from boredom? We shall see. My solution to having a soapbox topic in the past was to start a new blog. Now I have four personal ones, plus one for work. The travel blog was done for some Canadian guests, but never updated. I don't remember what set me off about the childbirth blog. I started a blog to vent my frustrations with my GIS project, just remembered it.

Anyway, the Lafayette Backyard blog has about outlived its usefulness, needs to be repurposed or get a new theme. Anyone, anyone?

Biggest Harvest: Volunteer Butternut Squash

This has been a strange year. We had nice weather till about mid-May, when it turned into oven-hot. The grass was crispy, the irrigation water bill was high. Now, in July, it's cooler due to the daily rains than it was in all of dry hot June. It started raining about mid-July.

Many of the citrus trees have set lots of fruit, and we did get some figs preserved. The dry weather was hard on the figs, even though we watered the tree.

Our big surprise - the compost pile sprouted out with acorn and butternut squash. The butternut squash are smaller than you get in the store, but they're very good. The vines are still going strong - usually, either a borer or a powdery mildew kill them. The okra is getting a slow start due to the drought, but the hot peppers are doing great.

We are trying to think of more things to do with squash. Ray had bought some very hot chicken wings by accident, so he steamed the squash in small slices, peeled it, and mixed in the chopped up hot wings. I think it also had some sauteed sweet onions. Anyway, the sweet/hot mix made a very tasty dish, even better when topped with chopped toasted almonds for crunch. One good thing about the winter squash is that it holds very well on the vine, as well as after harvest. We might get a couple of tomatoes, and also an eggplant or two that Ray planted as an afterthought.

One thing we didn't do before hot weather was to prune the azaleas, and cut down the oak and pecan trees that are growing on the fence line. They are taking over the yard, so I think I will prune them hard, as soon as I can, even though it means I won't get any blooms next spring.