Damage In The Garden From Uri

Hi, Friends,

The weather has warmed up. 

My family, friends, and acquaintances have all had their power restored. There are no more black outs and the water is safe to drink. We are allowed to do laundry again. Pipe repair still continues for many people. The grocery stores are restocking. Life is returning to normal. We're waiting on the plumber for a clogged drain.  My new phone arrived today so Siri will no longer be talking to me in the middle of the night. 

It's going to be 76˚ tomorrow. 

 I've been able to take a walk about both yards and look at the damage from the storm. 

Here are some pictures. This will help me document what happened and how the recovery goes. 

If this ever happens again, maybe I'll know what to expect. 

The house in town: 

Our dwarf nandinas are a gorgeous red. The leaves on the rose don't look dead but they look strange. 

I'm not sure if they will fall off or not. 

Before the storm, I watered everything. I covered the beds with blankets. On Monday the 8th, the high was 66˚ the low was 35˚. The next day the high was 35˚ the low was 28˚. The temperature was below freezing for 10 days. The highs and lows were both lower than predicted. 

We got 6ish inches of snow with the first wave. During the first wave the temps dropped into the twenties at night. It was during the second wave that the temperature dropped to record or near record levels. It was 2˚ one night. The next night it was -1˚. We got a little more snow with the second wave. 

It has never been that cold since I've been in Texas. My mother in law may have seen it but she doesn't remember it ever being that cold. 

This is a sampling of what I found when the snow melted and we took off the blankets. 

Tulips weren't there before. 

Hello, Pansy. 

The bed below looks bedraggled but I think it will bounce back. There was angelonia in here. I don't know if it will come back or not. Snapdragons have had some die back but I don't think they are dead.

The little oxalis is going to be fine. It is tried and true. The monkey grass looked terrible during the storm but it looks okay now. 

A fern left in the ground had severe die back but there is still green underneath. 

My ferns, begonias, angel wing begonias, kalanchoes spent the winter in the green house with no problem. The first year I had the greenhouse, I lost everything in it when it got down to 8˚. Even with a heater, I didn't trust it this time, so all of it was moved inside or into the garage. Before the storm, I put pots of pansies in the green house and covered them with a blanket. They did great and they will be fine with sunshine and water. 

My azalea looks fine. 

Hopefully, my tradescantia pallida will come back from the root. 

My nandinas have some yellow leaves. I think these were the most recent growth this winter. 

My wax leaf ligustrums look frozen. They were about 20 years old and they were beautiful. I think they are goners. My pittosporum looks odd. I'm not sure what's up with it, 

I brought all of my statues inside so they wouldn't get damaged. It was one less thing to worry about. 

The bigger urns and fountains were left out and they seem to be okay.  They don't have cracks that I can see. 

My plants in that garage were covered with blankets. This spider plant was in a cart and was near the garage door. It suffered die back but it should be okay. 

 

Now for the yard in East Texas:

My blueberry juniper sustained severe damage during an ice storm that came with the first wave. 

They had ice, snow, and then more snow. They may have even had freezing fog. 

Their low was supposed to be -2˚ but I can't verify that. 

Bill went out after the ice storm to put a light on the well, saw the damage and sent me pictures. 

The pictures do not convey the magnitude of the damage. I took the pictures below when I got there. 

The far north east corner has the limbs sheered off. It was like the top limb broke and took down everything underneath it. These are so large that Bill couldn't pull the limbs away from the tree. We'll need to chain the limbs to the truck and pull them away so that he can chop them up with the chainsaw. The wood is beautiful so he'll make something from the wood. 

First let me say that we are very blessed to have been spared power outages, water mains bursting, etc but if you have been following our journey, you may recall that there was very little that I liked about this house. That tree was the first thing to capture my heart. I loved the vista with that tree in it. 

I'd just stare at it.

I was going to plant one in our yard here in town but it was the wrong time of year. By the fall, the correct time to plant, we had already bought this house. 

 I'm not letting him chop it down. It will probably never look the same and I'm not sure if that side can ever recover but we'll get used to how it looks. It might be a little lopsided for the remainder of its days. 

In the grand scheme of all that people suffered, it is a little thing. 

We have a smaller one at the front of the property and it was damaged too. 

I've since come to love many things about this house and property so these losses are small but still sad.  

I was also excited about my gardenia out there. It had already leafed out for spring. It's very crispy. 

There is some green near the base so I'll wait and see what happens. 

The daft daffodils got zapped. My gardening expert thought that any stems about 3 or 4 inches high should be fine under the snow. That is what they were when we were there on the 7th. They continued to shoot up in the warm days proceeding Uri so many of them were about to bloom. It seems like nature should have sent them warning signals. They will forever be known as the daft daffodils as far as I am concerned. I will love them anyway. 

I removed drop cloths from the front beds and the plants look bedraggled but that is about it. 

I've jumped on a Facebook plant group. Many people lost all their tropicals and seed starts in their green houses. Many of them shared stories of the loss of their rare plants. 

I feel very blessed that I've had so little damage. 

I think that the blanket of snow before the -1˚ saved most of it. 

Snow is beautiful but these low temps were like nothing we have seen. 

Nature is resilient. So much will come back. I know that I would like to trim down what I would like to save going forward. I realized that if our electricity had gone out, it all would have been lost. I would have saved the plant from my brother's funeral and a kalancho from a student. They would have been by the fire with Bill and I. 

That is all for now. I'll keep you updated on how things recover. 

Thanks for all of your kind wishes for our state. I know we weren't the only ones to get hit by this storm. 

I hope they are all well and recovering too. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Katie 

The Big Chill In Texas

Hi, Friends, How are you?

I hope you are warm and well.

We are fine here in Texas. Bill and I haven't lost power. The power lines in our neighborhood run under ground, so we haven't had some of the transformer issues. Texas is experiencing normal storm conditions combined with shortages in our power grid due to frozen wind turbines and solar panels that aren't getting enough sunshine. 

Our lowest temperature was 1˚. It hasn't been that low since I've been in Texas. Bill's mom is in her 80s and she doesn't recall anything this cold. Every Texas county was under a winter storm warning which is unprecedented. We are accustomed to power outages in the spring and summer instead of the winter so many Texans weren't prepared. 

I feel very blessed that we did not lose power. Bill was a Boy Scout so he has some skills in the event that we did. Even with that, much of our camping gear in out in East Texas. 

 Bill's mom lost power at her place. Bill was on his way to check on her when the assisted living place called and said they didn't have power. She had been in the cold for about 8 hours. He brought her here. 

It took a while to warm her up. 

Our daughter lost power and she is safely ensconced at my brother's house.  

We got a boiling water safety alert this morning. Thankfully we had a lot of bottled water to take out to East Texas. 

We'd already had our coffee before the alert came out. Gross.Hopefully that was good water that was already in the pipes. No word on when that will be lifted. I'm not drinking the water for a while though. 

I've had moments of concern about our new house out in the country but I've tried to put worry aside. If the pipes or the well freezes, it's something we will deal with. I'll be sad but in the grand scheme it would be okay. That is one of the ramifications of having an extra place, I guess. Our neighbor went over to check on it yesterday. He said everything looked fine. It's a God thing that we have met him because he never met the other owner. We met him a few weeks ago when his dog was running around on the highway and he and Bill exchanged phone numbers. What a blessing. 

We got another dusting of snow last night so the roads are bad again today. 

We don't have snow plows down here so we rely on sunlight and traffic to clear the roads until the snow melts. 

We bought a house in the spring of 1983. It had been a bad winter so we lost a lot of shrubs because of the low temperatures. I have a strong feeling that some of my shrubs here in town will die. 

I know that one of my favorite trees out in East Texas has storm damage from ice that blew in a few days before the snow.  I don't know what else was out there and the few things that I planted should be okay. 

I joined an East Texas plant group on Facebook. Many of them lost everything in their green houses when they lost power.  

I brought in most of my tender potted plants and they are okay for now. 

 

This is has been another bizarre experience in what has been a long year. 

We are through most of the cold, cold temperatures. The energy crisis continues so we aren't out of the woods yet as far as that goes. 

We are used to wind, hail, tornadoes. Winter storms? Not so much. 

I don't know how you guys do this every year. 

That is an update on us.

I hope you are well and warm!  

Katie 

Winter Decorations After Christmas

Taking down Christmas is like ripping off a bandaid.

I don't want Christmas to be over but there is no denying that it's over for the year. 

"I might as well get it over with." was my thought this year.

I love the clean, almost minimal look after all the Christmas folderol is put away.
(As minimal as I can get, anyway.)
The decorating excesses of the last four months are packed away for another time.
Can I even remember what I had on the mantel?

I took my cue from the outside when adorning my rooms for winter.
The bare branches and gray sky were my inspiration this year.
I clipped crepe myrtle branches for a few of my vases.

Mercury glass votive holders dot my tables.

Little friends, like this penguin from Pier 1, are left out for a few weeks.

Chunky cable knit throws and pillows add texture to the almost all white scheme.

Snowy bird houses from the tree are festive but appropriate for this time of year.
They aren't too Christmasy to be left out.

Christmas greens are put away. They are replaced with boxwood and eleagnus clippings from the yard.

I love the silvery green leaf of eleagnus.

Lanterns and candles fill the void where Santa and Frosty used to sit.

Paper whites, real and faux, are favorites on some of the table tops.

That is what I'm working on, my friends.
I'll be back with more room views.

There is lull now that the Christmas posts are all finished up.
I'll be cutting back a little but we will be back with Monday Social on Sunday.
I hope you are warm and cozy in these last few days before the new year.
Katie 

Wooden Sled Out Of Scrap Lumber

 Welcome to the Twelve Crafts of Christmas series.
Here is my first craft of the season.

I've wanted a sled for my front porch.  

Antique sleds are very, very pricey here in Texas.

If we are lucky we get one or two snow events a year.
I love Texas but I also love snow so I'm a little conflicted and somewhat bitter.
I hope that doesn't come across in this post. :)
When I was a kid we got bikes for our birthday and sleds for Christmas. 

My kids got bikes for Christmas.
We made sleds out of cookie sheets and baking pans.
Someone somewhere has one of my baking pans.

I decided to make a sled.
I did what I always do when I want ideas for something.

Thank you, Pinterest.

The garage is a veritable wonderland of scraps.
Thank you, Bill

We had a board that Bill had ripped for something.
It ended up being about 1 x 3.

I cut it half for the runners.

I angled the ends to give the illusion that this can go flying across our imaginary Texas snow.

 1 x 2s to made the cross pieces.
I drilled pilot holes so that the wood wouldn't split.
1 1/2 inch screws hold the pieces into the runners.
The bed rails of the sled were made out of fence pickets that didn't survive the great pumpkin toss of 2016.
Two pickets were damaged when Bill threw the pumpkins over the fence.
It's a tradition. He tries to throw our pumpkins over the back fence from the deck.
I tried to stop him after the first picket splintered when a pumpkin collided with it.
Once burned- lesson learned? Nope.
Two splintered pickets were enough to make the sled.

The pickets were screwed into the cross pieces.
A steering arm was attached.

It is pretty cute as is but I had to paint it.

Red or green?

Green is my color of year so it won the day.

Two little holes were drilled for the rope.

I'm quite smitten with it.
Sled ornaments are next on my agenda so please come back for more crafts of the season.
On December 5th our Cozy At Christmas Blog Tour begins.

It's that most wonderful time of the year.
Have a wonderful day.
Katie