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| At the Avett Brothers concert with friends Cheryl, Jimmy, and Sharon , Whitewater Amphitheater, New Braunfels. Sharon and I, both July babies, were celebrating our birthdays. She and Jimmy have seen the Avett Brothers in Savannah, St. Louis, Albuquerque, and Nashville too. |
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| The opening band was the Wheeler Brothers, who won five Austin music awards this past year. |
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| At the Eastside Kings food trailer for my birthday dinner of fried Brussels sprouts salad, fried beets, Thai chicken. So good! |
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| Outside an East Austin biker bar |
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| Seriously? Is a bicycle a vehicle? |
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| The plumbago (bluish flowers) is from a plant my sister Martha gave me from her home in New Orleans, after Katrina, right before they moved to Shreveport. The Mexican petunias are the pink flowers, and the plants spread and thrive in Central Texas. The esperanza is the little yellow flower in the back. |
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| Papa Tom started the autumn tomato plants from seeds a few weeks ago |
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| The seedlings are too big for the tray. It's time for bigger pots. |
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| Papa Tom has the perfect tool for moving the seedlings to the bigger pots. He found it in the Arroyo Seco, when he was out running. One of the things he likes to do when he runs is to clean trash out of the Arroyo, so it will be a better home for the minnows and turtles and frogs. |
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| See what a perfect fit this is? Oh, and somehow a moonflower ended up in the tray. Probably a "volunteer," a plant that springs up on its own in a garden. |
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| Last step in the transplanting process: watering the seedlings. |
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| I think they're called leaf footed bugs because their legs are flattened, like leaves. |
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| Believe it or not, there are a lot of tomatoes and bell peppers in the garden too |
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| Sunflowers reaching for the sky. We hope the parrots will keep coming back for them. |
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| Lucy Fur thought I was going to feed her, so hopped up on the bricks to wait for her Maintenance Cat. But all I had in my hand was the camera. |
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| Mya is learning to tell time on her pink Minnie Mouse watch and plays T-ball with River |
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| Jade's learning to play one note at a time. Last time she was over, the lowest notes startled her. Now, she's comfortable with the entire keyboard. |
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| Getting into it! |
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| Clomping through the house in my shoes |
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| It's true what they say about children and boxes. As soon as I brought the box out, the toys in the room were forgotten. |
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| From LaWanda: "Here's a couple of pictures from the Mississippi street fair July 14. He had an absolute melt down when we got home and I tried to wash his Spiderman face off before bedtime. I think Otis really thought he was Spiderman, and that mask was going to stay on forever. He wouldn't even answer to Otis, he'd correct me and say "NO I NOT OTIS, I SPIDERMAN"! |
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| Established in Austin in the early 1970s from escaped caged birds, Monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) also known as Quaker parrots, are native to the temperate and subtropical regions of Argentina and surrounding countries in South America. "Monks" are often heard before they are seen, as their call is a loud and throaty chap(-yee), or quak quaki quak-wi quarr, and their sometimes startling screeches sound like skveet! They have grown in numbers by being able to survive our mild winters, and as such have now been included on the official list of accepted Texas bird species. |
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| See the beautiful teal, lime, and gray coloring of this Monk parakeet/ Quaker parrot? |
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| We came home from Sarah's baby shower on July 14 and spotted a parrot in the sunflowers. Papa Tom had seen a couple of them feeding the day before, so we knew to look for them. They blend in perfectly! Can you find the parrot? |
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| Beka and Sadie flew in from Chicago for Sarah's baby shower, held July 14. Here we are with 4-month-old Sadie, our first grand-niece. |
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| Grand-nephew James Kirk Howell is due August 16. We're hoping he'll make an early appearance on Papa Tom's birthday, August 9. |
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| Papa Tom's Mom, Evelyn; mom-to-be Sarah; Sarah and Beka's maternal grandmother Bobbi, who came in from Mercedes, in the Valley; Beka with Sadie; and Sarah and Beka's Mom, Bobbi Kaye, with Sadie's pacifier. |
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| After last summer's many, many days in a row of 100 plus degree days with no rain, we are soooo grateful for every drop that falls! See how green and happy the plants are? |
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| Poor Zoomer! I backed into a very short pole that was protecting an air conditioner unit in the guitar school parking lot. Unfortunately, I got into the car from the front and didn't see what was behind me. And the pole was too short to see through the rear window as I was backing up. I heard this horrible crunching noise and couldn't imagine what I'd hit! Baby Zoomer is in the shop now. She'll be smiling again very soon! |
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| Moonflowers, sunflowers, and sunshine. The moonflowers bloom at night and close in the morning. Do you see the green tomato to the left of the moonflowers? I'm not sure what the vine with the purple blossom is called. Does anybody know? Maybe it's a morning glory; they only bloom in the daytime. |
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| Here's our peach crop for this year. We had plenty of peach blossoms and green peaches, but this is the only one that ripened |
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| Looks like eyes! |
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| Peach eyes, small tomato nose, strawberry mouth: eyes open |
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| Eyes closed |
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| When I was watering one of our potted plants, this little guy didn't like being splashed. I saw him moving in the bottom of the pot and rescued him. Do you think this is the kind of caterpillar that becomes a butterfly? He curled up in a ball when we took him out of the pot. |
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| Otis and LaWanda spent Sunday afternoon (July 8, 2012) at Multnomah Falls, just outside Portland. |
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| Nothing like an ice cream cone on a summer afternoon. |
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| We took 19-month-old Otis to Multnomah Falls in December 2009. Portland was experiencing unusually cold weather and the falls were frozen! |
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| Papa Tom and Otis at the falls. I decided it was worth sliding on the ice in the parking lot to get a photo. We didn't even try to hike to the bridge (see below). Next time! |
| Multnomah Falls | |
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 Full view of both tiers |
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| So my pal Sharon and I (I'm The Other Sharon) decided we'd celebrate her birthday in Austin. We worked at the Williamson County Sun in Georgetown together back in 1986-87. She and her husband Jimmy still live in G'town. Sharon and Jimmy drove to Leander to catch the light rail. They got on the 6:19 p.m. train; here we are waiting to join them at Crestview Station, near our house, at 6:54 p.m. |
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| Here they come! |
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| Jimmy sat in front of Sharon so they could save us seats. She said people would stop and ask Jimmy if the seat next to him was taken and he'd say "yes." Then they'd stop and ask Sharon if the seat next to her was taken and she'd say "yes." They must have wondered what was going on. |
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| We ate at the East Side Kings food trailer on Sixth Street east of I-35. The owner is Paul Qui, who is a Top Chef: Texas winner and took home the award for Best Chef: Southwest at the 2012 James Beard Awards (equivalent of a culinary Oscar). He is the executive chef at Uchiko and also cooks at Uchi, here in Austin. |
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| Sharon and Jimmy |
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| The only free table was next to the outhouse. Oh well. Papa Tom enjoying the fried brussel sprouts salad.
Included on the menu at the food trailer: deep fried beets, roasted Japanese sweet potato, and curry buns (peanut butter homemade curry in a deep fried bun, fresh basil, cilantro, mint, onion, and jalapeno). Everything we tried was delicious. We will definitely go back. |
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| Dogs are welcome. The establishment even provides bowls of water for pets. |
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| We then walked 1.9 miles (according to Google maps) from the East Side Kings food trailer on East Sixth Street to Amy's Ice Cream at Fifth and Lamar. |
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| On our way home. Strange how, in the reflection, it looks like Papa Tom's hand is touching his chin when, in reality, it isn't. We were at the Convention Center station, near the Car2Go parking spots. |
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| The train was only running once an hour by the time we finished at Amy's, so we walked a mile to the closest train stop, at the Austin Convention Center, and caught the 11:25 p.m. train home. |
