I spotted a HUMMINGBIRD!!!

They must be following the geese and cranes which have steadily been flying overhead all week long.

Great @Linda! I need to get the feeder out of the garage! I'm so ready for the cold weather to be gone for a while.

@needrain I hope some of those geese are Canadian and flying home. They roost on our boat and dock when we aren't at the lake and we can smell 'em as soon as we drive up!

Lake Travis? I didn't know geese roosted. I thought they spent all night floating on the water. That said, geese can be really, really messy anywhere they are hanging around. And with domestic geese, they can be curious and just nose around from time to time, taking a bite here and there to see if they like it, all the while leaving a steady trail of goo until they are herded back to where they belong.

Nope, Lake LBJ. Honk, honk, honk...they travel in gangs, you know? We also have seagulls up there when the weather's bad on the Coast. I love them, and throw food to 'em off the dock. Well, I might as well tell you too...we have a skunk family under the house. They only come out at night. Don't ask me about the all the deer...

Gaggles. Gaggles and gaggles and gaggles. But doesn't their migration run from something like a few weeks before there is warm weather all the way through sometime down in May for the straggler gaggles? Seems like birds fly over head here going one direction or another depending on spring or fall for a number of weeks. Lake LBJ is a nice lake visually, I think.

The rest of the gangsters/gaggle are on the dock. I think some of them must stay all year.

I know they are messy, but I love seeing them. I had a grandmother that had domestic geese and we ended up with them when I was young. Somewhere in the family there is a down mattress that my grandmother made. A full size mattress. We have some pillows. It's a chore to get that down. It used to take 3 of us to pluck it. My older brother and I held the body and neck (they have a wicked bite) and Mother would do the plucking. When they play on the water, I'm just enchanted watching them. When it's on a stock pond, it looks like they are going to splash it empty. Here's a photo of a cheap papyrus souvenir I got when I was in Egypt. It a good replica of a 6-8' foot limestone slab of life-size representations taken from a tomb. I saw the original in the museum in Cairo. The detail was really fine. The folks that painted those tombs were really skilled. Their style was so stiff that it's easy to overlook their ability, but it's impossible not to notice on the geese on that slab. Almost photographic in the detail.

That's lovely! I always wanted to see the pyramids up close. The way the world is now, I don't think that will happen. You're fortunate to have been there.

Someone in your family has a treasure if they have your gramma's mattress. I don't think I'd make a good down plucker. I would be tempted to strangle a biting goose. We have a few swans on the lake that someone released. I hope they made it through the winter.

$4 art until I had it framed. Manufactured by the thousands, I expect. But I liked it. Swans have the reputation of being extremely aggressive, much more so than geese. I think they are larger, too. I hope you get to see some cygnets. That would be fun. They used to have some swans at Clark Gardens near Mineral Wells, TX. All gardeners that get near Clark Gardens should set aside a bit of time and visit it. I need to go again. It's been a long time. Mr. and Mrs. Clark were still hands on when I was there last and I know there are some new things now.

Clivia scape.

3 of many baby lemons

^^^^HEY! And upclose look at the pictures shows some white stuff all over the lemon tree. Any hint on what it is and how to get rid of it? I thought the leaves had pollen on it but they look a little peaked, too.

Another sign of spring: We were covered in a fog of yellow pine pollen today. It blew through the neighborhoods like a mist, dropping on anything and everything. Ahhh, Spring!

It sounds like powdery mildew from your description, but I'm not seeing it in the photo.

I enjoyed watching the Clark Gardens video (twice). Hard to imagine how they designed and developed such a beautiful oasis. I remember Weatherford being a spot where we spent the night on the way to Roswell, NM when I was little. There wasn't much there then. I'm sure it has changed quite a bit since then.

That garden was carved out of a mesquite pasture! Unless it's changed since I was there last, when you enter the gates on the property, you drive through regular old mesquite country. The actual gardens are a bit of a shock after that. I took some friends who have visited many of the great gardens in England and Europe. They were impressed.

Hard to comprehend how a couple had the vision (and the money) to implement such a vast garden in a relatively short time.

Yes. I really do want to visit again. The chapel hadn't been built on my first visit, so it has changed. It really was a personal garden space for Mr. and Mrs. Clark. They had $$$$ to spend and hired help, but they were gardeners as well. I didn't know them, but I had met Mrs. Clark the first time I was there. On one of my subsequent trips on a weekend when all the help was off for the weekend, I was trying to locate an area on the map and not managing. With my friends in tow, I stumbled across Mr. and Mrs. Clark down on their hands and knees weeding in an area so I naturally asked for help. It turned out the area I was looking for was in the planning stage and not done yet. They couldn't have been more cordial. The money was there to commission a life-size bronze of Mr. Clark - with him sitting down gardening and his Labrador retriever playing near http://trtdg.com/2009/05/08/cl... - a chocolate lab that I also met in an earlier visit. It has changed some, I know. It's larger and it's set up to cater functions like weddings. That probably generates income to maintain it, but feels a bit more commercial than private.

Loved the statues!
We have had "something" tearing up our little pond out back. Last night for the umpteenth time, I set the trap and caught a huge raccoon. Our spot to release them is now sporting big houses on $300,000. lots. And they've rudely gated the area. Our new spot is closer in, but risky. As DH opened the trap, he noticed a wildlife camera attached to a tree.

I have good friends that live near Town Lake. They do not love racoons.......