On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me,

Twelve mother of millions,

Eleven pipers piping,

Ten blooms are blooming,

Nine ladies dancing, (what?…I had nothing!)

Eight stink horns stinking, (okay still struggling)!

Seven swans a-swimming,

The Botox Lady’s spraying,

FIVVEEE  “precious”  rings…

Four inflatable turds!

Three Naboo Men,

Two anoles in love,

And a Tahoe’s occupants did flee!

I have been feeling musically inclined of late, can you tell?

Moving on…Oh yes, we are getting well into the Christmas spirit here in the Patch. Our tree is up, our moth-eaten stockings are hung, and more importantly, there are a couple of excited hobbits that inspect both objects on a nightly basis, with magical childhood anticipation.

I know what this one wants… a new “amphibious” Thomas the Tank Engine, this one stopped running as soon as it’s wind-up engine hit this water feature, like he cared.

Looking like Hogwarts candles illuminating the main hall, these amaranth seed pods give the impression that they are under some form of enchantment, hovering in space.

The candles are hovering all around the patch.

This hall was the inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movie. Only Oxford students of this Christ Church college are allowed to dine here. Staying on the Harry Potter theme…

“Almost got it”!

This seedpod looked remarkably like the Golden Snitch, albeit a little rustier. This rogue snitch must have left the quidditch field and got hung up on my back fence some time ago.

Southern Green Stink Bug.

Nezara viridula

I assume that this evil green chomper is eating nuts from my pecan trees, they love nuts, kernel spot of pecan is caused by the feeding of this stink bug.  These guys will also munch on practically any food crop they can sink their nasty teeth into. This one flew off before I had time to hit it with an over-sized mallet. They remind me of the aliens in The Fifth Element.

Although it is not a welcome sight, the form of this bug is really quite something, with it’s wings nesting in a recess on the top of it’s low-profile body. It’s sculpted under-carriage. Perhaps what is needed to eradicate this pest is a rather over-sized, and extremely nasty looking brown tongue, to lick the bugs from foliage?

“Eeewww!  Watch out for that sotol, giant tongue”!

You have got to be kidding me!  (knees knock together, left leg flies uncontrollably upward, jaw involuntarily wiggles left to right, hands clench, you know the drill, right Germi?).

“ahhhhllghmoooocall that a tonguemooooo.”

Can you guess what this nasty looking cow looking tongue once was?  Go on, I dare you…quite bizarre, it even had the texture of a tongue when I squeezed the edge of it…errrrr….Gross, well you knew I was going to!  Touching this cold tongue sent me into an involuntary silly walk around my decomposed granite pathways, back to the relative safety of my Galleon ship home.

 

This giant timber bamboo is really visible now that the pecan tree that it is growing through has lost all of it’s leaves.  The bamboo has now grown above the canopy of this tree.

This pecan is destined for the chop very soon, the sooner the better. It is really scrappy anyway, dropping this and a bit of that all throughout the year. If it isn’t dropping pecan husks it is dropping the droppings from the multitudes of web-worms that usually inhabit the tree. Have I said it is always dropping something?

I am continuously sweeping this concrete patio. I have another pecan to the right of this one that will also fall under the wood-cutters axe soon enough, when the three giant timber plants below it mature.  I am under no illusion that this bamboo grove will also shed lots of stuff, but bamboo sheaths are much easier dealt with than the messier “products” that the Pecan trees drop.

Another tree that I am continuously hacking at is my Vitex. This tree was in pretty bad shape when we first move into our house. I have made it my goal to keep shaping and trimming this shrub-tree to raise it’s canopy to new higher heights. Here it is on the right after today’s most recent haircut.

Talking of hacking back…This red passion vine now resembles a mass of seaweed after our recent freezes.  I wondered what manner of monsters were laying in waiting for me in it’s murky depths.  I reluctantly went to the shed to get my gloves and pruners.  This vine did not freeze at all last year and naturally it got quite enormous.  As I approached it with my pruners a large tentacle lashed out of the undergrowth and encircled my arm.

Staying on the subject of sea creatures, check out Korean designer, chul an kwak’s dynamic tables…

Try sitting on one of these if you can, before they scuttle away and bury themselves in the mud-flats.

Sotols, agaves, ghosts, gophers and bottles all just swooned through the cold night temperatures with ease. I love this bed!

As did this new addition, Red Carpet Sedum.

Sedum spurium ‘Elizabeth’

“I hereby give this sedum my frosty blessing”.

Inspirational image of the week…

“I am not a lover of lawns.  Rather would I see daises in their thousands,ground ivy, hawkweed,and even the hated plantain with tall stems, and dandelions with splendid flowers and fairy down, than the too-well-tended lawn”.

William Henry Hudson, author and naturalist.

(Thanks for this JuJu)

(1841-1922)

Stay Tuned for:

“Has He Been?”

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