Coffee on the patio

As you know, the weather in Austin does not lend itself to patio-sitting much of the year. Early-morning is of course more comfortable, but when summer really comes to town it is just too hot and humid to enjoy being outside – even in the mornings. So now is the time to enjoy the patio. Now is the time to sit in my new $10 plastic chair, put my coffee cup on a left-over kindergarten table and survey my kingdom. Life is good.

Unlike some of you, we’re not surrounded by flowerbeds and foliage. There is a large pot with a few tomato plants (actually bearing tomatoes, I’m pleased to report), two pots of cucumber plants that have bloomed like crazy but have yet to set a cucumber, and two pots of mystery flowers that have pretty blooms, but we haven’t a clue what they are. They were on sale at Home Depot and there probably was a sign somewhere that gave the name, but we kind of missed that. So they are anonymously pretty.

We have the bird feeder of course, but they don’t come feed when you are sitting out. They just sit in the tree and gripe until you go back inside. The back yard stays adequately mowed, thanks to Todd and his crew. They can mow the front and back, trim the edges and blow off the sidewalk in less time than it took me to get the mower gassed up. The Bramblett pecan tree is a nice size now, but we’ve never gotten any pecans from it. That’s about it, view wise.

It’s the borders of the kingdom that give me pause. It’s a jungle out there. Who knew that the 4 little hedge plants I put between us and the Nichol’s property would grow as tall as the house, and that wild grape vines and something that looks suspiciously like poison ivy would take root in those hedges and twine themselves into an impenetrable barrier? Or that over on the other edge of the property the rootstock of a hybrid mail-order pear tree would outlive the tree and now be a thick squatty bush that yields what may be crab apples and takes up too much room.

Or that down at the back fence a bazillion hackberry saplings would grow into a solid wall, blocking completely the view to the neighbor’s yard – not that’s necessarily a bad thing – It’s just that there are so many of them! The Chinese Tallow along the lower left fence is now threatening both electric line and cable – neither of which I am willing to do without. And then there’s the sink hole just beyond the patio where once there was a big hackberry. Ben Baisdon’s crew cut the tree down before it fell on the house and where there was once a stump now there’s a pit. I have visions of it opening up some day and swallowing everything and our house becomes film at eleven. And has anyone seen the coral snake lately? No? Good.

I really need to do something about the wilderness at the edge of my verge. But first, I think I’ll have another cup of coffee.