Finally, A Yard Update

After long last, a yard update. I started this post last night but Brenna was ready for bed, so I'm picking this up again now.

We're now averaging out around 100 degrees for highs, with no humidity, which is May weather, very nice. The monsoon seems to be finished with us, after dumping six inches on Phoenix and about two and a half here (which is backwards what usually happens).

Anyway.

The creeping trumpet vine is blooming in earnest now that it's in the shade all day. Here is one cluster of many blooms.

Here are some weeds that are taking over that side of the yard. They're covered in little yellow flowers, but the blooms are replaced by nasty thorns/goat heads that stick in the bottom of your shoes and snag the carpets.

Despite losing a lot of it's leaves in our windstorms, our lemon is loaded with fruit again this year, maybe 30 total, they're hard to see. How many do you see on this one limb?

Here's my freebie plant, deposited in the yard by a nice bird. This guy is covered in these pretty yellow blooms.



Our lantana in the corner of the yard is reaching for the top of the wall now, and spreading in every direction. I'm almost positive we have some birds nesting in this thing.

The golden fleece recovered to bloom yet again after our August rains. I hope these come back again next spring, these are some of my favorites, I haven't planted any of these in years, they just keep reseeding, depending on how wet the previous winter was.

Hello calomonden. I ate you. You were tasty. I look forward to making a pie out of your friends.



A wider shot of the north side of the yard. Our acacia (tree) is leaning from some of our recent winds, I'm going to have to tie this tree up at some point, I don't think it's going to straighten on its own. Notice my engineering feat of proping our bird feed can beneath it's trunk.

Jujubees, I will be eating you soon, if I can only figure out when you're truly ripe.

You're supposed to pick these guys right when they're turning brown, but last year I ate one good one and numerous others that were mealy. Last winter a planted a Lang Jujube next to this Li, reading that having a Lang nearby would greatly increase production on the Li, and that book wasn't kidding. Last November I picked maybe 5 or 6 fruit, this year I have twice as many. The Lang only produces if it cross polinates with the Li, which apparently didn't happen, as it bloomed but never set any fruit.

And Yet More Rain

We had some light rain last night and another downpour tonight. That's now six out of the last seven days it's rained, completely unheard of. Phoenix is already at their yearly average with four months left in the year, we're at ten inches out here, which is about two inches shy of the yearly average with four months left to go. We're thankful that all of the wind damage that points west of us suffered passed us by.

Rainfall totals over the last seven days for us:

0.40
0.64
0.36
0.24
0.10
0.20