Garden Visitors in Central Texas

I was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful lady while bringing in the paper last week. Wow! (says me) I had to run in and get my camera and take pictures because this elegant specimen, a Golden Orb Weaver garden spider, is fully 4 or more inches from top to bottom. The body alone is an inch or longer and her thickness must be about 1/2 inch. I'm not through congratulating myself on this picture taken with my fairly low tech digital camera, as it's better than any others I was able to pull up on the web. Here's a little more info if you haven't run for cover yet. Look for item # 10. http://insects.tamu.edu/extension/bulletins/l-1787.html

This is a beautiful time of year in Central South Texas! Temperatures have finally dropped 5 or 6 degrees off the highs of the summer and most days peak out between 82 and 86 degrees. The low temps of the day are ranging somewhere from the high 50's to the mid 60's. In this waning October, the light from the full moon was so bright last week that a 3 am awakening had me up and looking out the window for sunrise. I went outside on the patio for a few still moments with the moon and a warm steady breeze from the southwest. Peace is so easy here.

Many of the native flowering plants are in full bloom now. You can still wear your shorts all day long, but in the early morning a little windbreaker is nice if you are walking. Yesterday, Austin reached a record high for the date at somewhere around 90.

We moved here from my husband's home of over 30 years in the Boston area where today's high will be about 57. Sounds like a beautiful fall day, but we will have a bright and sunny 82 or so here and when Boston starts hitting those 30 degree or lower marks, Central Texas will still be between 60 and 80 degrees the majority of the time. I have to interject here, that we loved Massachusetts too, there is a season for everything though, and we belong here now. That said, it is highly unlikely that we will be burdened with shoveling snow, falling on the ice or dealing with broken pipes due to freezing or severely aching joints from the cold. It is even less likely that frostbite will be a major health concern. There is a chance, but not a promise that I will wear my wool coat at least once or twice this winter. Thunderstorms and rain can be awesome and dangerous here, but they are also beautiful and renewing in their power. Gardening is a year round enterprise and each season brings new life.

Still, all is not perfect in paradise. You have to be careful of things like making sure you treat your yard for pesky little creatures like fire-ants http://austin.about.com/od/fireants/ and fiddle backed spiders http://www.ozane.com/pcn/spider01.html . Mold is an ever threatening issue http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/hrofr/interim/int77-1.pdf#search=

The growing population is encroaching so rapidly on former wildlife areas that our gardens are teeming with deer, armadillos http://www.flex.net/~lonestar/armadillo.htm, rabbits and the occasional skunk, scorpian, army beatle, tarantula or centipede. Cameleons, frogs, roadrunners and turtles are my personal favorites. Our garden also has a wide variety of butterflies and birds. If you go near the water, you are sure to see an occasional crane. A pair of morning doves took up early morning residence behind an Iris plant near the house last year and kept me company for a few days, and if you sit on the back patio long enough you are sure to see several hummingbirds feeding on the flowering bushes.

While it's a beautiful site to see deer grazing peacefully with the morning dew glinting sunlight off their graceful Bambi-like forms; the first time you notice that the target of their meal is a$40.00 plant (now sheared to within 2 inches of the ground), or that your $200.00 tree is dying from having the bark rubbed off...they become less charming. It is advisable to step gingerly in the yard to avoid the telltale "pellets" of last nights deer visitation. After replacing major landscaping items a few times the level of frustration is very high because you want to live responsibly with nature, but you are not getting much cooperation from the other side.

Ah well, I think, but God created all of us. Be patient, enjoy all of this beautiful free entertainment and hold the complaints for a time when there's something really bad in your life. For now, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be. Perhaps Genesis says it best:

23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. 24 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." 29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

I left the Golden Orb Weaver alone for now; "Goldie" has protected status. Isn't it a great thing that God lets us live in his garden too. What a life!