The wildflowere centre

Mum , Jo and I went to the Lady Bird Johnston wildflower centre..it was beautiful. It is very close to where we live and is dedicated to wildflowers of Texas.

When we came here, we had heard many times how Austin was famous for its wildflowers..we could not understand why, and then the drought of the last three years ended, and we had good rain this winter...and the transformation of the road sides, gardens, school areas..it was amazing..so beautiful and fresh..the colours are amazing and the shear number of wildflowers is lovely...if you like plants you need to visit from march until mid ,may, we have plenty of them then, before it get too hot for flowers to survive.

More wildlife to help encourage you to visit

When we went out last Saturday to friends for some Mexican food and Margarita's, ( we cycled to them so we could indulge ourselves) we came home to find a visitor on the stairs. How it got in to the house is a mystery, but in it came, Allan being brave scooped it into a cup and put it over the back fence. That is the second Scorpion we have had in the house, most are in the garage or outside.
Then yesterday evening when we were tidying up from Ben's party one of the kitchen chairs was being carried in by little old me, and suddenly I felt the Praying Mantis on my hand, I will have to confess to a squeal, still remember the scorpion you see!!!! Allan once again dealt with our new visitor and it also went over the back fence. Just so you know over our back fence is some rough ground, with lots of trees and bushes, that the fire department has for training. I have never seen them there but it is designated a training area for them, so we are just helping them tackle natural Texas wildlife. The scorpion had its tail curled until Allan poked it with a pencil, then it stretched it out and looked a lot bigger!! My bug book says Praying Mantis are good pets, and will eat any bugs so good indoors as well for pest control - not sure what my food safety head says about that!? apparently they are very friendly. Now my food safety head loves scorpions, which by the way are not insects, they are arachnids - part of the spider family, because they eat roaches - now that is good. ( Matthew I will ship you some over if you have any sites that have a real problem, they sting and its painful, but not life threatening, the chefs will be fine!)

An extra at the table

While we were eating on the patio this evening Allan noticed we had company, and we thought you all might help us identify our new friend( or foe!) . We have looked up our Texas bug book and can not find it, so I think that most probably means it is not too worrying, but it is always nice to know who has joined you for dinner. I might add Jack did not share any of his 24oz steak with our guest!!! I have added a new label of wildlife in Texas and will be adding to it, although we are getting familiar with certain wildlife, I thought you might enjoy seeing it.