Wonderful Weekend

Grams is in San Antonio to take care of Our Little Princess this week. Her Mama has an extremely busy week at work and Daddy has gone on a spring break ski trip with his family. The Princess could have gone to day care, but Mama's busy schedule would have made it difficult to pick her up on time in the evenings. There is nothing Grams would rather do anyway. Grandad is in Houston until Thursday evening, so this turned out to be a great week for Grams to spend in San Antonio.

Springtime in South Texas is the most beautiful time of the year. When winter finally passes, everything bursts into bloom. That's already happened down on the Gulf Coast and it's just starting in San Antonio and into the Hill Country. We were treated to beautiful Texas wildflowers on the drive up Friday afternoon.

On Saturday we decided to take advantage of the picture-perfect weather and try to get a few obligatory "bluebonnet pictures" of Our Little Princess. Anyone who has ever been to Texas probably knows that all Texans must have at least one photo of their children taken in a field of bluebonnets. I'm pretty sure it's a State Law.

We packed all the baby accoutrement, including a variety of Spring dresses, into the car and headed North out of San Antonio towards Blanco. Wildflowers were few and far between. I remember reading a few years ago that the wildflower bloom moves 100 miles northward every two weeks. I'm thinking it'll be at least two to three weeks before the bloom makes it to the Hill Country. So, postponing our bluebonnet photography for a couple of weeks, we decided to head on up into the Hill Country for lunch and leisure.

At Becker Vineyards, just outside of Fredericksburg, the lavender fields are on the verge of bloom. In another couple of weeks they'll be breathtaking. But the peach trees and Texas redbud trees are in full, glorious bloom. We stopped for a brief respite and enjoyed a stroll around the lawn. But, we didn't stay too long, because they have wine and bread, but no lunch appropriate for a one-year-old Princess. It was lunch time and we were starving. We drove on to Fredericksburg and had lunch on Main Street. After lunch, Grams and the Princess enjoyed a stroll through the park while Mama and Grandad finished their lunch. We visited a fabulous toy store where the Princess gathered up as many dolls and stuffed animals as she could carry. We did manage to distract her long enough to get her out the door without actually purchasing any of them.

Sunday was another beautiful day, so we spent a few hours at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. It was so much fun. Again, most of the gardens are not yet in bloom. But the formal garden near the entrance was beautiful. We got to see a beautiful wedding under the garden's Wisteria Arbor and there were several brides having their bridal portraits taken throughout the garden. We took the Texas Native Trail which included a climb to the top of the Overlook for a gorgeous view of San Antonio.

We had a lot of fun with the ducks in the pond at the East Texas Pineywoods portion of the gardens. We also especially enjoyed Watersaver Lane. It's an exhibit that demonstrates how beautiful and varied xeriscape lawns can be. Grams and Grandad have been studying xeriscape in anticipation of some redo of our own lawn which was badly damaged by last year's drought.

We finished up the weekend with a delicious home-cooked meal, cooked by the Princess' Mama. Grandad flew out on Monday morning to work in Houston and Grams settled in for a week of playing with the Princess. It's such a treat when your grown-up children cook for you.

I hope you're all enjoying a leisurely pace this Spring. Here in Texas ... Life is Good!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When I developed an interest in the culinary arts, I quickly realized that fresh herbs were essential, yet hard to come by and expensive.

Grams lives in South Texas, home of H-E-B Grocery Stores. While I really like shopping at some H-E-B Stores, especially their Central Markets, I'm not a fan of my local store. This store leaves a lot to be desired. I dislike the Calallen store so much that I drive 22 miles each direction to shop at an H-E-B Plus Store. Specifically, they don't stock many of the items that recipes call for. And don't even get me started on the quality of their produce. When I recently approached them about stocking Greek yogurt, which I eat almost daily, their response was that they would be happy to order it for me if I would buy the entire case. Seriously? A case of Greek yogurt?

On the up side, trekking 22 miles to the grocery store forces me to be organized and to plan ahead so as to limit my drives across town. On the down side, it severely limits my access to such short-lived items as fresh herbs.

I've always puttered in the yard in the spring and early summer. I grow beautiful roses and have a gorgeous succulent garden. But once the temperature exceeds 90 degrees, I'm done with gardening. I just don't like to be outside when it's that hot.

For the past several years I have tried, with very limited success, to grow my own herbs. I planted some in between my roses and some in a separate bed in the back yard. This year has been particularly hard because we've had the worst summer on record, more than 35 days of temperatures over 95 degrees and zero rainfall for months. Our yard is decimated. There is very little grass left and it will take a long time for it to recover. But it did finally rain. We've had about 7.5 inches in the last week.

I found a great location for growing my herbs. This summer, I planted them in pots along the front sidewalk. This puts them in the shade under our big oak tree. They get very little full sun, but they've done beautifully there. (The accompanying photo was taken at noon on a very sunny day.) I've had fresh basil, thyme, chives, parsley, spearmint and peppermint all summer. The only thing I planted there that didn't thrive was dill. I'll try another location for that next spring.

This access to fresh herbs makes it even more fun to cook something up in the kitchen so I can say "Grams Made It."