Brad's Tropical Paradise

I just finished doing some repair work on my front gate, which included disassembly, sanding, staining, and also repainting the frame. It spanned several days and I enjoyed the process, as I enjoy doing anything in the garden - it's all a labor of love. But when it was all finished and I stood back to admire my hard work, all I really saw was that the gate looked the same that it always had been for the past twenty years or so. But that's really what I want. I like my house, and my garden, and caring for it includes doing stuff like this. I'm not fixing it up to sell, or flip, I live here, and hope that I'll be able to do so for the rest of my life (and it looks like there's a lot left!). This style of gate is typical here in the Phoenix, Arizona area, and when I had it installed (to replace the old plain wooden gate which was falling apart), I imagined that in the future I would have to replace the wooden slats. This gate faces west, and gets the full force and fur...

When I bought my house, many years ago, the trees were small and I enjoyed going up on the roof, but that was a long time ago. Nowadays I need professional help, and they were here yesterday. Although there are a lot of drawbacks to living a long life (don't get me started!), one of the benefits is seeing trees on your property grow. I bought this house in 1993 when I was 35 years old and the trees, although small, were already there, so I'd calculate that they're over thirty years old. There's one in the backyard and one in the front courtyard and they now soar over the house giving wonderful shade in the summer. In addition to lowering my air conditioning bill (I'm in the Phoenix, Arizona area), I love having trees just for their beauty. Phoenix used to be a city of trees, long ago before air conditioning, but nowadays the attitude for many people is that they're just too much trouble. Sadly, that just makes Phoenix hotter in the summer, and of course less bea...

Now that my first generation of triops have finished their lifecycle, I'm preparing for the next generation. This is similar to overwintering bulbs, which is part of the reason all of this appeals to me as a plant person. The next season of triops will begin when the water from the tank has evaporated, and hopefully the detritus will contain eggs. Of course, they're microscopically small, so I just have to hope, and go through the motions. If you're wondering how the triops could have produced eggs, considering that they most probably didn't mate, it's because of something called "parthenogenesis". You can Google that to find out more, and it's part of the 300 million year success program of animals like this. They don't need to mate in order to produce fertile eggs. Of course, there's no guarantee that there will be life. I've planted enough bulbs in my lifetime to know that sometimes you think that you're doing everything right, and i...