Adventures In Grapefruit

A few of the odd things B. is determined to grow in the face of all
probability. Ok they may sprout, but the climate in Texas is all wrong
for the blueberries at least. The grapefruit mania is explained below.

Sometimes, Brain, I have my work cut out for me, living with B. Take gardening for instance. It's not something B. is particularly interested in, and generally he's is content to leave the gardening chores and choices to me. Until he's suddenly not.

On unannounced, random occasions B. will inexplicably get a bug up his butt about some gardening thing he's read about in a blog, or just pulled out of thin air, some plant he wants to plant, or some item he wants to add to the compost. At such times there is absolutely no talking him down off the ledge. All my careful work and planning teeters precariously on the verge of wanton destruction as B. and his plans go into action. If something like this happens when I am out of town on a gig, well...
Take this past month for example. I was in the Bahamas and B. bought us a lovely new electric lawn mower. That's not the problem of course. The lawn mower is great; state of the art, quiet, rechargeable, easy to use, and looks like a ship out of a Star Wars movie (and I want you to note that our idea of using a push mower to keep what's left of the lawn in check, lasted exactly nine months, most of which were winter when the lawn wasn't growing OR being mowed- yet another casualty of the reality check). Anyway B. buys this mower while I'm gone, and attacks the back yard (which, in the space of 2 weeks, had shot up a veritable jungle of weeds. The cat could go missing for days in it. We forgot we had a back fence. Zoey lost 47 tennis balls back there in 2 hours. You literally had to wade to the compost bins). This mowing of B's, it too was a good thing. The bad part comes when B. decides to dump the 5 bags of cut grass into my compost piles. Now compost is pretty simple as long as you sort of loosely follow a formula of one part green stuff (cut grass, kitchen scraps) to three parts brown stuff (dried leaves, paper, cardboard etc.). When I got home and saw the haystack of dried grass that my compost had become, I tried to explain that formula to B. His response was that I should not worry, he would get us a UPS delivery man to add to the bin, thereby restoring our ratio of brown stuff.
See, he's not quite getting it.

And then there was The Great Grapefruit Caper. B., who wont go near grapefruit (literally demands that they be segregated out of his side of the produce drawers) became obsessed with the neighbor's grapefruit tree. Every day on his way home from work he checked the progress of the developing grapefruit, reporting on its potential ripeness each evening as he came in the door. When I wondered why he was so interested he told me that we needed to steal a grapefruit in order to harvest it and plant its seeds. I pointed out that the neighbors tree was behind a 6 foot tall wooden fence that was garded day and night by a loquacious Beagley-type dog and that that he didn't even like grapefruit, and finally that Home Depot sold young grapefruit trees that we could just go and purchase without risking to our eardrums (from the Beagle) or our shins (from the fence splinters). But NO! Absolutely that would not do. The seed had to be taken from that tree and no other. I thought that in time, if I ignored him, his interest would wane and he would move on, but I was wrong. Instead of waning, his interest and determination grew to fever pitch during the big freeze we had this winter. He obsessed over the state of the tree. Was it dead? Was the fruit still harvestable if the tree had frozen? Would the seeds still sprout if the fruit was bad? I had tried saving seeds from the grapefruit I bought in the grocery store but B. would have none of it. He began to have a haunted look in his eyes, and when I actually heard him talk about grapefruit in his sleep, I reluctantly decided something had to be done. Yes. I gave in and helped plan Mission Grapefruit Extraction. The plan, I am embarrassed to say, which involved us loading up the Element with our ladder around midnight, driving a couple of houses down the street to the unsuspecting neighbor, me piling out of the car not at all like a ninja in the night, but more like a team of angry furniture movers at 7 A.M., waking the startled beagle, grabbing the lone remaining grapefruit at the expense of my scraped elbows and scratched arms, piling back in the car and B. making our getaway by reversing back up the street like a bat out of hell. True to the way the world works, this grapefruit was the only one on the planet not chock full of seeds. We found three seeds total in the whole thing. But these I dutifully saved and they are now planted, watered and waiting to sprout. B. of course, has lost all interest in them.

The transformation in progress. we thought we might have killed the
Mimosa tree with our intensive pruning, but in fact, what did not kill it
gave it a vengeful will to live. I had read in a book about Texas landscaping saying that this tree is now considered a "waste plant." The thing is,it attracts Swallowtail butterflies
like crazy when it blooms. Waste plant my rear end!

In other gardening notes. I am pleased to post pics of the transformation in progress in the front lawn. My battles with the hedge monsters have paid off. The front entry is beginning to look quite up to date and almost wildscaped. The front door has been repainted a bright and cheerful red and the dark, narrow walkway feels so much nicer and more inviting now that the hedges are gone. My Globe mallow is flowering for all it's worth. The sage is in bloom, all bushy and lovely. Today I added even a couple more plants to the bed that aren't in the picture. B. and I (after another ninja-type drive by at a construction site) brought home a bunch of limestone to line the new flower space with (OK I should explain that we didn't steal limestone someone was planning to use, rather it was stone that was dug up and dumped after a construction project), and it looks fabulous in my opinion. I've a ways to go with my yard elimination project but I can see a light glimmering at the end of the tunnel. What you can not see in the pic is the section of lawn we dug out, mulched and replanted with yucca, lantana and cactus (OK the cactus isn't in yet, but it's coming soon). I'll take a pic when it is done. I'm so pleased with how its all turning out. Oh and then the other pics are of my chairs that a scavenged. Someone in the hood put them out on the curb for the trash guys to take. I grabbed em, repainted them and put some twelve dollar cushions from Home depot on them and WAH-LA! I think they look great on the back porch.


The new porch chairs.