My sweet mangoes

I'm so excited that my two 'Carrie' mangoes on my young tree are close to being ready for harvest. Supposedly, it is one of the better tasting varieties of mangoes. We shall see soon. I also have a larger 'Tommy Atkins' that produced one fruit earlier in the season. Unfortunately, we never got to try it. It smelled great, but it got rotten because my wife and I kept waiting to be together to try it. When I cut it open, it was all rotten, but it still omitted a divine smell. Sigh. This is what living in the tropics is all about.

Bringing down the Arizona ash

It has been a long time since I last made a post. We've been getting lots of rain. Normally, we don't get much during the summer expect when a hurricane makes an appearance in the Gulf of Mexico. It certainly is a strange weather season. Unfortunately, all this rain we are getting is coming in large gulps. More than an inch or two at a time is not really that beneficial. In my front yard, I've been working on getting rid of this nasty Arizona ash tree, which is an unpleasant nonnative tree that developers plop in the ground when they build homes. This one, which was 30 feet tall when I cut it down, was planted much later. These trees grow very fast. My grandfather planted some Arizona ashes at the home he had built in 1955. These monsters were 60 feet tall and falling apart from disease when my 80-plus-year-old grandfather climbed up in at least one of the trees and cut it down branch by branch. That's pretty much how I cut my ash tree. Now, I'm digging up the bulk of its main roots. Eventually, I'm going to get rid of all the grass in this part of the front yard and make it just one large planting bed of mostly native plants. Near the ash tree, I have two 'Mission' olive trees planted. I'm hoping to one day squeeze some of my own olive oil. I read that you can use a cider press to do that. First, the trees have to produce olives.

More smiles from the rain lilies

Zephyranthes citrina


Zephyranthes grandiflora


Zephyranthes sp. "Grandjax"


Zephyranthes sp. "Prairie Sunset"

In Uvalde

On Sunday, my wife and I drove up to Uvalde. My parents and grandparents each own two acres next to each other on the Nueces River northwest of Uvalde. I hadn't visited the property since the mid-1980s when we tubed down the Nueces as a family. The property was quite difficult to find. Access to it was by a measly dirt road that had several side roads, and the end that I needed to get to was blocked by a gate. I eventually found the property on Monday with the help of the people who sold the property to my parents. Whew. It was quite a relief to finally find the spot. It was so beautiful. It is amazing what nature can do when humans don't interfere. I don't think my parents had been there in close to 15 years. The terrain was full of mountain laurel, Texas persimmon, oaks, an occasional pecan, Texas walnut, cenizo, sotol, agarita (one had berries 1/2-inch long!), prickly pear, Ashe juniper, a few oaks, little-leaf sumac, flax-leaf bouchea, coreopsis, prairie larkspur and many others. The riverbanks were in such good condition. There were no invasives in sight. It was mostly carex and desert willow holding up the integrity of the banks. The river was quite swollen and moving fast because of all of the recent rains. I saw so many colorful birds. I'm not a birder. The only one I can tell with certainty that I saw near the property was a vermillion flycatcher. In Laredo on the way up, we saw a hooded oriole and and Western kingbird. I posted many pictures around the property below. Each are titled "In Uvalde."

In Uvalde

Mealy blue sage (Salvia farinacea)

In Uvalde

Little-leaf sumac (Rhus microphylla)

In Uvalde

A vermillion flycatcher