I'm offering to put you right back into the game.

June 14, 2010. Wow, that was almost two years ago. So why so long between updates? If memory serves me well, illness came through the house in July, 2010. And my gardens got some kind of infestation. I tried to get rid of it but it was to no avail. Pretty much within a week, everything was dead or dying. We had a week-long family vacation planned in August, 2010, so that killed off anything remaining. Winter 2010/2011 was a really dry Winter and Summer 2011 was brutal. Trees were starting to die because they weren't getting any water. We lost one tree in 2010 and another one possibly two last summer. As of right now, Lake Travis, the main water supply for Travis county is down about 100 feet. Last summer it reached the lowest point since something like 1954. Considering that the Mansfied Dam was built around the 1940's, I think that technically, this is the lowest Lake Travis has been since it was filled up.

Everything I had done the summer of 2010 was undone. The little trench I dug; gone. The raised garden beds are still there but they've been overgrown with grass. The few drought resistance plants I planted; died.

So why am I updating now? With the weather we've been having, the pets have been attacked by fleas. I found out about Nematodes and decided to give it a try. The only thing is that it is suggested that any "mulch" be removed as they have problems getting through it. So I had to go through and rake up all the leaves in my backyard.

And there was another problem. To refer to the potential/eventual layout of the backyard that was done in this post, the corner of the patio by the purple, the ground around that pecan tree furthes away from the house is actually higher than the patio. So when it rains, we get a mudslide right into the porch. I decided to put up a little retainer wall to keep the dirt off the porch but have been waiting to get the bricks. Well, it dawned on me last week. We have pretty much stopped using our awesome brick grill. It was just too hot last summer and this summer looks to be a repeat of last summer. So I've decided to re-purpose those bricks into the retaining wall. I've been working on it for the last week and it's turned out pretty good if I must say. It's not a high wall, only about 3-4 rows of bricks at its highest. I can't wait for the next rainstorm though to see how it lasts. Although if the weather is like it's been so far, I may have a long wait for the next rainstorm. We were suppose to get thunderstorms this weekend and we got about 30 minutes of light rain. Of course in March, we got something like 8 inches of rain in 6 hours.

So anyway, hopefully next week I'll release the nematodes!