Tag Archives: gardening

“Meadow Mania”

So clearly having 2 chitlins has slowed mon field notes. It’s nice to be able to look back and see that the babies have made a softer and fuzzier me. And it’s not just my new baby fat and hairy legs. Long before they were twinkles in a petri dish, I had dreams of chubby little legs running through the meadow by our house. The details of not having an actual meadow fluttered way above my head. “Don’t worry sweetheart of a new hubbie, I’m a gardener- we’ll just make a meadow.”

 

Step 1- wait for the long abandoned and mostly waterlogged house next door to come out of trust.

 

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Step 2- Bless it’s 1980’s soul and then quickly take it out of it’s misery.

 

Step 3- call friends at Native American Seed

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Step 4- dazzle your new neighbors with tractors

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Step 5- Voila- your new meadow.

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Step 6-

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Any of my fellow gardeners feeling a little fib in my pictograph?  Think it went something a little more like this….

 

Step 1- agonize. fret. wring hands. argue about the property next door. Know that any new buyer will need 3 stories to get a city view- and an excellent view of our back garden and nekkid swimming.

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Step 2-  Secure next door property- knock it down and unleash a plague of rats on the entire neighborhood. starting with your own house.

 

Step 3- wait until the soil is perfect temperature, finally spread the seed

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Install temporary irrigation, watch the birds convene daily to eat the grass seeds and then suffer 2 monster turd floaters that wash the majority of all the seed down the softly sculpted hill.

 

Step 4- re-sod with heinous squares of buffalo turf that take eons to establish

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Step 5- finally get some grass traction- contemplate reverting to your father’s way of killing fire ants via pouring gasoline down the mound and lighting on fire. take refuge in Aztec Pest Control’s kinder and gentler way.

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Step 6- crouch low when the city code inspector drives by frequently- has someone called me in for not cutting my lawn? Is there a code against having long grass? shouldn’t I know this somehow?

 

Step 7- Finally, get some luck, pull up the temporary irrigation after 2 seasons and get la niña!

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I mean, was it worth it? Yes yes yes. I’m quite obsessed with it- I love it in the winter when it’s all gold and blowing. In the spring when it’s 5 bluebonnets and thousands of primroses bloom (the majority of the primroses at the bottom of the hill- ahem).  Slowly, the other wildflowers are coming in- wine cups and other friends are self-sowing.

 

The second baby comes and what…is it hormonal….as we awaited Leon’s birth- in some weird nesting thing last fall I went out and dug in 100’s of flower seeds into the upper meadow. I’m telling you now that about 4 of them bloomed this spring.

 

So in a fit of maternal crafting this fall – Willie and I decided to make a butterfly garden in the upper meadow- with live plants. No more of this seed shit.   And it isn’t pretty when the hormones have access to a planting crew,  coincide with the native plant sale at the wildflower center  & a need for some “alone time” in the nurseries.

 

I purchased oh about 150 4” plants. Willie and I dotted them all over the upper meadow & called my long suffering irrigation guy.

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They came through my beautiful meadow and trenched to run temporary drip to the butterfly plants.

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Is it worth it?  Before we could even get the plants in the ground we had loads of butterflies. And watching the babies eyes light up is all that I had dreamed and more.  Trust me hubbie- we’ll just “make a meadow. It’s what we do.”

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