On a few small acres in the hill country of central Texas, we live by watching, feeling, and waiting. Together, we come to know by loving and love best when we care enough to understand. Our Loves: limestone, leaf-vein, scales, feathers, friends, and all their shifting reflections in the waters of a small Creek.
Along the Creek or up on the Hillside after a small rain, all waters attract us. And along the way, vines and spines and the skeletons of cacti lure us by any means necessary. But the yellow in that Golden-eye is unavoidable this year--along our county lanes, across the limestone hillsides, behind the house. I'm glad I cannot escape it.
Prickly pear skeleton
Above we have proof of the strength of a simple morning glory vine when determined to encircle yucca.
Redstripe ribbon snake (Thamnophis proximus rrilineatusub) belly is bigger than its mouth. The leopard frog (Rana) got away after a half-hour struggle.
Ah, yes.
Those blue eyes....
Fox scat on the trail down to the Pond.
Palafoxia (Palafoxia callosa) is the most ubiquitous flowering plant
down in the stone-field of the dry creek bed.
Zexmenia (Zexmenia hispida)
Golden-Eye (Viguiera dentata)
.
Golden-Eye (Viguiera dentata) in big-bloom all over this country now.
Velvet-Leaf Mallow (Wissadula holosericea)
Velvet-Leaf Mallow (Wissadula holosericea)
Wood-Sorrel (Oxalis Drummondii)
Common Wild Petunia (Ruellia nudiflora)
Tube-Tongue (Siphonoglossa pilosella)
Texas Lantana (Lantana horrida)
Curlytop Gumweed (Grindelia nuda) with its sticky
leaves (growing mostly in the stonefield). Indians of the
Southwest would treat ant bites with a poultice made
from this flower.
Sometimes its tops are white instead of yellow.
Spittlebug (see 4 April, 2012 entry)
Snow-on-the-mountain
Tropical Sage (?)
Frostweed
So, daughter K. arrived last weekend with the solution to my paradox-of-choice. I wake in these cool mornings with too many projects, large and small. Stone walls to build. Stones to find. Stones to haul. Juniper to cut and burn. Soil to turn. Scrap to haul away. Pens to build. Steps to complete. Paint to paint. And because the list is so long, I am always paralyzed with the many options and then regretful into the first few minutes of the project because I can't forget the other projects I probably should have chosen instead.
That's when K. suggested that we write on slips of paper the individual projects and label them as "7-hour," "3-hour," and "1-hour" projects. We wad them up and stuff them into an empty cashew jar. Then when I have, say, a full day or most of a weekend's worth of time, I reach into the jar and blindly pull out any one of the 7-hour project sheets and get to work. This process eliminates the paradox-of-choice. I have no choice but the one slip's assignment.
