Some Houndstooth Hall photos

Cleaned up this side patio yesterday. When our neighbor died, her family put several items on the curb, including these red chairs. I don’t know how things are where you live, but in Houston, when you put things on the curb, you know they will likely be taken long before garbage or heavy trash days. It’s one of the things I like best. Through our decades here, we’ve put all kinds of things on the curb outside the various houses where we’ve lived, and those things are almost always gone by morning. Anyway, she and her daughter used to sit out on these red chairs while we hollered conversations across the street to each other. I miss them both very much; sometimes I like to sit out here and watch my dogs play and roll in the grass, or I catch up on social media on my phone. This is where the Hall dogs’ water buckets stay, because it’s shady there. I pulled out a tree that was so damaged in our winter storm last year that it couldn’t recover. Because of the patio’s location on the property, Lynne advised me that it would be a good place to put the pop-up greenhouse we’re planning to buy to save the plants we potted this year when cold weather comes.

Like our Kalanchoe plants, which have done very well and bloomed more than I expected them to.

And the row of potted knockout roses, lemongrass and other grasses, bougainvillea, and lantana. I swept leaves from the patio and this walkway to the Fox Den for Tom to bag last night.

This is one of Tim’s herb gardens that he can water through his kitchen window without having to deal with his nemesis, Jack. This is part of the patio that was full of leaves. They’re about to start falling again, so I thought it was time to get rid of the remainder of last year’s. Tom doesn’t clear our beds of leaves because they provide a healthy, safe environment for bugs, bees, butterflies, etc.

I missed some leaves on Tim’s other area of potted herbs and plants. Can you see Jack looking through the gate on the left? Always hoping Tim will come out so they can express their feelings about each other.

This is across from those plants (I think Tim washed this inside door mat, and it’s drying on the bench). The area was inches deep in leaves yesterday, and it was very gratifying to clean it up.

This wood has been bagged or piled up in a couple of places for a long time. The crate was another “curb gift.” My neighbor’s dog Zeus died within a few days of her. I took his crate specifically to gather and hold the wood on the carport for our chiminea. Not a conventional way to stack wood, but it adds a little of Zeus to Houndstooth Hall.

I also cleaned up Aaron’s Garden yesterday and added some new plants. Here are some shots of that.

Part of my clean-up effort was because our weather is nice and I want to sit outside and enjoy it while I can. Also, we expected a visitor this week. More on that later.