Another day another plant

A trip to town calls for a few more plants for the garden. I added a grass and trailing rosemary near the bench, and two drought resistant shrubs: feathery cassia next to the trellis, and a Texas ranger, Green Cloud, at the far side. They should both quickly grow to a large size and provide some shade for the garden.

A flycatcher posed for pictures yesterday.

A New Garden

There is plenty of room for a cactus garden in the pool and it was hard not to pick up a few Trichocereus grandiflorus hybrids while at Lowes yesterday. They have amazing flower colors. So this is how they looked yesterday after planting.

And this morning they looked like this! Wow!

So off I went collecting plants from around the yard, the ones that weren't doing so well in their rocky locations, and picking up some clay art to fill in the spaces between. Now we have a good start on a cactus garden.

Here is how it's looking with the rose trellis from Oregon (that looks like an ocotillo). We moved a bird bath down for whatever critters are missing the pool. I'm sure the digger bees will swarm the water.  I want something green and leafy to climb the trellis so will be on the hunt for a drought tolerant vine or shrub, and I'll put the potted cactus in the ground in the fall after it's put out some roots. Keep fingers crossed that we can keep the critters out and the cactus will grow and multiply and give me lots of spring color in the coming years.

Friday Stuff

This fish has been laying around the yard since we bought the place. Finally found a new life for it as a windchime.

Hooper snoozing

 

 The Mirtazapine has improved Tux's appetite and she is eating again. I hope now she will have the energy to fight off this fungus and even put some meat on her bones.

Our big yellow barrel cactus is flowering.

Lambs!

It's spring. The ewes showed up with their lambs today, flowers are blooming and the wild burros are gathering.

Desert Big Horn females and lamb

Three lambs and three ewes

A verbena, I think

Trailing four o'clock 

My favorites, the dark burros

Neat Neighbor

I believe this is a Desert Banded Gecko Bob found under a stepping stone in the yard! It has moveable eyelids and no toe pads. First gecko I've seen here.

Dog Update: Tux finally ate like she was hungry Sunday, after a week of only taking a bite of yogurt or hamburger now and then, then Monday nothing. She actually left the house when I brought her bowl. Vet gave me something for nausea, which she might have been feeling with all the meds she was taking, and an appetite stimulant that I hope will get her back to eating regularly. She did want breakfast this morning. 

The BCs are feeling their age. It's difficult for them to negotiate the rocky trails now and the afternoon heat is getting to them, so our walks are getting shorter, slower, but they still demand to go twice a day. Tux is taking so much of my attention that I feel I'm missing their last good days. 

And the Pool is Gone

Hard dusty work on the Bobcat. The hole is filled. Now to let the dirt settle and decide on a final layer of material. Small gravel maybe. Voila! A nice pad to park an RV.

Another Sunny Saturday

Work on the pool is progressing. Two or three more loads of fill will be delivered tomorrow and that should fill her up. We're going to miss the nightly show of bats and nighthawks that were attracted to the water.

Here is our Valley Fever girl. She has eaten little for almost two weeks and looks awfully skinny again. The antibiotics are altering her taste and she has no interest in the most delicious foods I offer. That should correct after the meds are finished tomorrow -- then we'll only have to deal with the Fluconazole messing with her appetite. I'm not feeling good about her survival at this point but we are keeping up the battle.

  

Below is the new staircase Bob is working on. We had to disassemble the old staircase when we replaced the rickety old deck with the roof overhang, so those materials are being used to rebuild the new. These are narrower, less intrusive in our small yard and out of the damaging sunlight in this location on the north side of the house. 

Prepping to fill the pool

The pool will be filled this weekend!

Bob in the Bobcat

Some clay works, will trim them tomorrow.

Small bottle, big bowl

Tall bottle

Round bottle

Tux Update: She hasn't eaten much since starting the new meds Monday and her ribs are showing again. She's been eating off and on today but I have been hand feeding. She's alert and more active but still sleeping a lot.

Big Pot, Little Pot

Tired of doing regular old pots, worked on something a little more fun today. Big pot:

Little pot:

Tux Update: Immediate effect of the Baytril, Flagyl and doubled Fluconazole is to destroy Tux's appetite. I'm afraid she is going to lose a lot of weight and this week will be just as perilous as the first week of anti-fungals. I am exhausted.

Good News Bad News again

Good news on Hooper. The kidney diet and probiotics are working wonders. Blood testing today showed her creatinine and BUN levels have returned to normal! 

There is some good news for Tux. Her body is accepting the Fluconazole and her liver is still functioning well. The bad news is she has lost weight after a rough week of bloody stools, depression and loss of appetite. She still has a low grade fever and evidence of sepsis. Poor thing seems to be losing the battle with this fungus. We are doubling down on the anti-fungal meds, eliminating the anti-inflammatory, and treating with Metronidazole and Enrofloxacin for the sepsis. I still wonder if it wouldn't be kinder to let her go peacefully, but I guess we'll try the more aggressive approach and see how she is in three months -- if she makes it that long. Yes, it's that bad.

We interrupted a couple of lizards in an intimate embrace on our walk yesterday. This appears to be the female with her tail frozen in "position." I'm taking the camera with us now, hoping to catch a couple of tortoises in the act.

I am working on large clay bottles for a specific glaze combination. Here are the first two. Clay is Cone 5 Sedona Red that fires to a pretty toasty color. The dark clay is making an awful mess in my studio though.

Glaze Fix

This is the troublesome pot with pits from the initial firing I posted a few back. It's been through a second low fire cycle and produced a quite good result. I filled the pits with a little more of the Cone 06 Mayco Copper Aventurine that had bubbled, then fired it with a Cone 04 bisque load. It produced some interesting coppery sparkles and streaks and runs. Photos don't show it well, but darker colors are glossy while the butterscotch color and white are matte. It's a little darker than the first result, but I'm really pleased with it overall. Usually my glaze experimentations are pretty awful. In fact, I feel like most of my glaze firings are disasters, so thank goodness for small favors. The swimming pool hasn't been filled yet (in it's transformation to RV parking pad) and makes a great place to throw ugly pots. I love smashing them almost as much as making them!

It's been an awful spring for wildflowers. Not nearly enough winter rain. Creosote, brittle bush, ocotillo and a few other shrubs like the two below are flowering a little. It will be a tough year on the bees and other insects. 

What's new?

Seems early for cactus blooms

No more funky deck. Nice metal roof instead.

Too Warm

First rattler of 2014 on the afternoon walk. A small diamondback curled up in a depression in the trail.