Let me start by saying “My poor lawn is dying a slow death”.

I have a living will and a power of attorney, and every legal document one can think of just in case the unforeseeable should happen.  I’m not the kind to dwell on sickness – but if I were to get in a head-on car crash, or stroke out, or develop some debilitating disease, My wife, my parents, the US legal system, and now you know that nobody should take drastic measures on me.  Yep, DNR me baby.  Most of my family is the same way – don’t keep us alive just because you can.  It’s about quality of life, not quantity.

But when it comes to the grass in my backyard, this is another story.  I’m doing everything possible to keep the green from turning brown.  Earlier, when we bought our house, some nice men came over in a Chevy pickup, tore up the back and put down fresh Bermuda Grass Sod.  But that was 9 weeks ago and now the Austin summer is taking it’s toll.

According to the newspaper we have had 59 straight days of 100°+ weather.  The levels in the lake are currently the 3rd lowest on record.  Even with the giant Oak and Ash (they are brother and sister trees) providing afternoon shade in the backyard I struggle to keep the disappearing green patches from vanishing altogether.

I keep the lawn mowed short, as is recommended.  I water deeply as everyone tells me to, and I even syringe the turf every night (syringing your grass is lightly spraying it down by hand to cool it  - this is not considered a watering by anyone who knows anything about lawns).

As if the heat weren’t enough, the City of Austin is imposing level 2 water restrictions because we might be  in some kind of draught.  This means that restaurants can’t serve water unless you ask for it.  You can’t hose down your driveway unless it’s to clean some biohazard off the cement, and homeowners can only water once a week.

C’mon now guys, you are tying my hands here!  How am I supposed to pursue drastic life support measures when you only give me one defibrillator paddle?  I spent hours leveling, adding amendments, and selecting the perfect turf for  my zone.   I dreamed of a putting green outside my deck.  Now what I’ve got is a decaying, brown carpet with mange.   I’d do a rain dance, but am afraid that my footsteps will do irreparable damage.

Sadly, yes.

As I was on my way to Whole Foods this weekend to pick up some fresh veggies and a  ciabatta for dinner, I passed our local Smith & Hawken store.  On the side of the building was one of those “everything must go” signs offering 20-30% off.  At first I just thought it was for one of the framing stores, or electronic retailers in the shopping center, so I thought nothing of it.

Then, this morning as I was scanning my RSS feeds, I read this post on Garden Rant, which is written by  a team of 4 “highly opinionated gardeners” across the country.

Now, I’ve only shopped at this gardening store a handful of times.  In reality I’ve only made one purchase, a pineapple garden hose thingy that you stick in the ground to prevent your hose from dragging across your flower beds.

But I have many memories of the fancy garden retailer, starting about 15 years ago in Los Gatos, CA.  Back then, I was only dating my wife.  I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, of course, and so I’d drive her up to get her hair done.  Of course I’d never hang around the salon – that’s private time prime, for ladies gossip.  Besides the hair color solutions used to give me headaches.

So to kill an hour, I’d walk up and down Santa Cruz Ave, and poke my head into the various stores.  Smith & Hawken was one of those stores.  I was lured in by the sounds of fountains, and  the smells of fresh gardenias.  Of course I lived in a 1-room apartment at the time and had zero room for gardening.  The apartment was even too small for container gardening.  Not that I could afford anything if I did have room.  I was putting myself through school working on my undergrad degree.

But the retailer did such a great job of establishing that feeling – the one that reminded me of my grandmother’s succulent garden on Pine Street.  It made me think that if I bought all this stuff, I too could re-capture those memories, or at least build a place to start my own.

Alas, now I have a budding garden of my own – within another year or so, I’ll be able to just walk out my back door to regain some of those feelings.

You can read the entire press release announcing the closing of Smith & Hawken.  Of course I always get my plants from the local garden stores in Austin – places like Red Barn Garden Center up off 183, but sometimes it’s hard to find some items – stuff like Japanese Garden tools. Oh, well, I guess there’s always Amazon…

Smith & Hawken to shut down because of weak economy

When we moved into the BW neighborhood, all our neighbors told us there are two really great things that happen here – the pool is the place to meet new people (I can’t wait until it opens for the summer after the extensive remodel), and that the 4th of July parade is something that can’t be missed.

So, as today is the 4th, and I don’t have any patriotic weddings today, I headed out my front door  at about 20 minutes to nine to see what’s what.  As I wandered down the parade route, I got to meet a bunch of my new neighbors (all very friendly of course).

Was I surprised!  When I got to the community center and saw all those decorated bikes, wagons, and dogs?  You bet I was.  What was even more shocking were the people lining the curb with their lawn chairs and American Flags.  It was just like the parades I knew as a kid, growing up in Salinas.

What was even more surprising was to learn that my house is on the actual parade route (Community Center, up Alhambra, Left onto Santa Cruz, and then another left down Balcones Woods Drive).  Thanks to all the police officers who closed the streets, and kept the route safe for all the kids.  It’s really appreciated.  Next year, our house will be the one with the biggest party

Anyway, here are some of my favorite shots.  The rest can be found in the complete BW 4th of July gallery.  The password is BW (all caps).  Feel free to download a free copy for yourself (If you use it on the web, please just link back to my site.)  If you want a print, I have to charge a bit more for my time. I hope you understand. If I had known this was such a big deal, I would have brought more equipment, and taken more shots!  Happy 4th of July!

Fireworks are one of the best parts of the 4th of July

Pictures of the 4th of July parade in Balcones Woods

This may be the safest 4th of july parade in the world.

Wagons were decorated with flags...

Bicycles had all kinds of decorations for the 4th, too

Even the cars at the end of the parade had decorations...

The rest of the photos can be found in the complete BW 4th of July gallery. The password is BW (all caps).

Only a few weeks after beginning my garden I’m able to reap the benefits. Last night I was hungry for a fresh, light dinner, and there wasn’t much in the fridge.  Too tired to even call for takeout, I decided to see what was on hand in my pantry – I had the usual stuff – a box of linguine, some olive oil, half a head of garlic – no butter, the veggie drawer was empty, and I wasn’t hungry for a bowl of cereal.

I dug around the cheese drawer in the fridge and came up with a stump of Parmigiano Reggiano, and found some pine nuts in a bag at the back of the freezer.  Once I saw the nuts, I knew I had dinner.

Start to finish it took 17 minutes to make one of the freshest dinnersI’ve ever had in my new house.  17 Minutes is the amount of time it takes to boil the water and cook 1 pound of pasta – by the way.

Ingredients

4 cups fresh basil – washed and loosely measured

1-2 cloves garlic – peeled

1/4 c Olive Oil (EVOO)

1-2 handfuls pinenuts (untoasted)

parmesan to taste

1 box of pasta

salt

Put a big pot of water on to boil – do this first, because it takes the longest to boil the water for the pasta.  Add a big pinch of salt so the water tastes like the sea for extra flavor.

I headed out to my garden and grabbed a bunch of leaves of basil right off the plants.  I planted 6 and all survived this texas heat (in fact they are doing quite well), so I took a bit of of each one.  No scissors, or shears, I just plucked off the leaves with my fingers.  When I got back inside, I used my OXO Salad Spinner to clean all the dirt off the leaves.

In a blender or food processor (or mortise and pestle)  grind up the garlic until it’s small bits – but not liquified.  Then add the pine nuts and pulse chop until they are small bits, too (but not dust).  Add in the Basil (be sure you wash it in lots of cold water), and process until you get a beautiful fresh green color.  don’t over do it.

Then add some olive oil until the pesto mixture becomes just loose enough to slide off a spoon.  If you add Too much EVOO  you can add more pine nuts and basil.

Open the lid of the blender and take a big sniff.  Smell that fresh basil and garlic. Yum!  Take the pesto out of the blender, and put into a bowl.  Mix in some freshly grated parmesan – I like to add a bit more to the pesto instead of sprinkling it on top of the pasta.

Now your pot of water should be boiling, so add in the pasta and cook until it sticks to  the wall when you toss it.  Someday I’ll describe my pasta testing method in more detail – I have a special pasta wall that I throw strands against just to see if they stick, but I digress.  This is a pesto class.

Drain the noodles, and then toss with the pesto mixture you just made.

Don’t eat it so fast that you choke.  Be sure to chew a little.

“Binks, you need to mow the lawn.”  

I’ve been hearing this for the past few days now, but have been putting it off because I’m in the heat of the austin wedding season and people want their proofs, prints, and albums.  It’s not like we have the worst yard in the neighborhood, but Sam had his yard mowed 3 days ago, and now we have that weird lawn line between our two properties.  His is short, and mine is long.  Kind of like hair from the 70′s – some had it short, and others had it long. 

As I’m pushing the mower across the front yard, I hear the whirring of the gears and feel the little bits of cut grass flying up against my lets.  Working from the back to the front and side to side, I get a good sweat going in the early summer evening, pushing the old-school reel mower.  But then I notice that I’m hearing the distinctive reel mower sound, but not feeling any grass.  I look down, and see that the front section is still green, but not nearly as long as the back section.  The dirt under the lawn is dry and hard, too.  This section isn’t getting watered by my lawn sprinkler system .  Crap.  As much as I hope this is a simple sprinkler timer issue I know this is going to end up with me, a shovel, and a big muddy hole in the ground.  

There’s not much use in me cutting grass that doesn’t need to be mowed,right?  So, I put the push mower away, and head over to my RainBird timer box.  Start with the easiest thing to check.  It’s plugged in (sometimes the thing falls out of the wall), and the 5 zones are set  for 10 minutes every Sunday and Thursday  at 5:00 in the AM – just like the guidelines for watering your lawn in Austin suggest.  I manually override the system by turning the big green wheel from auto to zone 1, and immediately the sprinklers pop up at the side of the house.  Turning the dial a bit more, I shut off Zone 1 and move through Zones 2, 3, and 4.  All OK. When I get to Zone 5, the one that controls the front of the front yard and the street strip, nothing happens.  I leave it on, and head out to the part of the yard that has the underground valve box.

I had just been working in this part of the yard, clearing old leaves, and tilling the soil, so I feared the worst.  Perhaps I hit a pipe with my shovel as I was digging.  The ground looks OK – there isn’t a large wet spot, or water bubbling up, so I might be out of the woods.  At the Valve box, I hear a strange sound – a sort of electronic water noise (nothing like Bryan Eno’s stuff), but none of the little black sprinklers are popping up.  What I’m thinking is the sprinkler solenoid is broken.

So I dig all around it, and take a look.  I knew this was going to result in digging!  Crouching down to take a look I see a 205PR automatic sprinkler valve, with a red and white wire, and some 1″ PVC pipe.  It’s dry, so I know there is no leak at the valve, and then I hear a click and silence.  The timer automatically turned off the valve, so now I also know the solenoid is working.

From previous experience (not with automatic sprinklers), I’ve learned it’s generally easier to replace the entire thing than to take it apart and try to fix it in place.  Stuff just isn’t made the way it used to be, you know.  So I bust out my hacksaw, and carefully choose where I’m going to cut the PVC.  But before I do, I head back to my timer box, and turn off the main water supply to the system.  

Like a hot knife through butter, I saw the pipe downstream from the valve.  A bit of residual water drains out of the pipe – no big deal.  I cut the two wires, and unscrew the entire valve and remove it from the ground.  Time for a trip to the BOBS – (Big Orange Box Store), otherwise known as Home Depot.

It’s 7:34 on a Wednesday night – so it’s not too crowded – 18 minutes later I have a bag of fittings, purple glue, wires, and valves – and my wallet is lightened by $60 (a cheap trip by all measures).

The next morning, it only takes 20 more minutes to finish the job.  I screw on the new valve, and attach the wires inside a special wax seal that allows them to be burried.  Turning the water back on slowly, so the air pressure doesn’t build up and blow a seal, I start the system.  Each sprinkler pops up and does it’s job.  There are no leaks around the PVC pipe or valve, so I bury the sucker.  

How do I know this stuff?  I have no Idea!