gulf fritillary

This tag is associated with 1 posts

Sizzling Summer in Austin

By ⋅ July 17, 2009 ⋅ 12 comments

Every summer for the past ten or so I have said to myself, surely this summer won’t be as hot and dry as last summer, but unfortunately that just hasn’t turned out to be the case. According to Jim Spencer at KXAN, the summer of 2009 has already been the hottest summer on record so far, with more than 30 days over 100 degrees F. Add to that the fact that we have also had almost no rain for the past six weeks (see the drought map below), we remain in the worst drought that we have seen here for years. All in all, this makes for some terribly challenging growing and gardening conditions.

Fall Colors Abound

By ⋅ November 25, 2008 ⋅ 2 comments

Our valley is more colorful this year than I can ever remember it. I don’t know what determines the level of color in our native trees, but we have had very little rain here since last May, very hot summer temperatures, and a very mild fall so far. The red oaks seem to get more […]

—