This Means WAR!!!!

I slept well last night. I think God knew I needed the rest to go out and be angry today.

Remember that beautiful garden that I posted about a couple posts ago?

Well, it's not a secret anymore. The birds discovered that I have a green thumb too.

They ate my first--first--first people!!! HUGE (it seriously weighed about a pound it was so juicy) beefsteak tomato. That made me mad. In fact I almost titled this post "Mad as Hell" but my in-laws are such gentle folks, so I'm hiding the title in here where those who only look at pictures will have no idea that that thought even went through my mind.

Let's just say that damage to crops does not get looked at lightly by anyone in my family. My grandma had someone come onto her fenced property and cut down one of her beautiful trees for their Christmas tree. Unfortunately for them it fell as all good trees do into the fence which was electric. My grandparents sat in their Suburban all night with shot guns.

Given that I don't own a shot gun and I live in city limits, I was MAD!!!

It made me start thinking about Noah and how he sent a dove to see if there was dry land. I bet after the dove brought back that twig he shot it. That twig probably had the only ripe berries around and that bird had eaten them for himself.

I know you think I'm blowing this situation out of control a tiny bit, but you'd be mistaken because you see, this morning when I went out to care for my little garden I encountered THIS:

My sons heard me yelling and ranting like a lunatic (I didn't swear--out loud that is) and they came running to my rescue. Sweet boys. I guess they get their sense of honor from their grandparents.

(not related, but super cute)

And because you are all obsessed with my garden I wanted to show you a Ghost Aloe. Don't try and grow one of these at your house. Come visit me and bring poison--bird poison that is.

This Desert Life

This is our neighbor's Jacaranda Tree. They only bloom this time of year and are so beautiful.

My grandparents came to visit Easter weekend and my grandma just couldn't believe how everything here is in bloom or so far along in its growth. Our growing season is completely off from most of the US and I guess I've just gotten a bit used to it. We planted our garden in February and now we have HUGE zucchinis and bell peppers and Owen's bean plant (from pre-school) is about to give us some beans. I also thought I had better show a picture of our ONE massive grapefruit that our tree gave us this last year. Anyway, we've loved our little above ground garden and I wish I would've taken photos of all my millions of snapdragons that were blooming the first three weeks of April, but I forgot.

It's hard to tell the length and width of these zucchini from the photo, but they are about as big around as my upper arm and as long as that too! The proud bean grower and his brother! (The kids love the onion blossoms.)

These bells are bigger than my fist by quite a bit.

Everyone who enjoys the garden that I grow.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to wrench this grapefruit from its mother. I didn't want to take away all of her hard work!

To give you an idea of the size of this grapefruit--compare it to Eli's head. You can see how much love (and water) was involved.

There were beautiful deep red snapdragons everywhere! The bush in the back is my new Privet. I'm hoping this corner will finally become something beautiful.