I really debated about whether to embed this on my blog because it's truly personal. On my mom's birthday last weekend, she showed up with a DVD of some footage recorded when I was four years old. It's the only Super 8 film they had although my dad won a camera. I asked Bear, my director and ultimate video technician, if we could import it into my Mac. She said to search Google. So, we did. We found a nifty open-source program called Handbrake which made it possible to rip the information off of the DVD and onto our computer. Bear did some editing--she wants to be a director one day--and suddenly, the 8 mm film was sharper and in better condition than before.  I downloaded a clip of projector sound just like you would have heard back then from Freesound.org, and with a bit of tinkering, we have a...

My sister has this noise she makes sometimes called her "Powerless Noise." It's a bit of a raspberry mixed with a sigh. That's precisely what I think of July and August, the two longest months of 2011. Do I really want to travel back there again? Will you venture with me? You're a brave soul. Well, then . . . onward! The hard times were just beginnin' on July 5th. In my most recent post, I stated we received good rain on Easter Sunday and then none after. Well, then it rained 1.24 inches in June, and it was over 100F for much of that month. The above one hundred temps continued through July. The caption of the photo below: "A touch of blue makes it cooler." Not much cooler I can tell you. Still, we weren't worried. We should have been. By July 9th, I complained I'd lost my...

Well, turn out the lights, the year is nearly over. Time to think of new things and see what changes occurred last year at the Red Dirt Ranch. Last January, I was dreaming of spring and greenhouses when I heard a bird sing. A bird is singing right outside my window even now. I still don't have the greenhouse, but I am a lot closer to my savings goal than I was last year. I shared a few writing tips which might or might not be helpful. It was a cold January unlike this December which has been so mild I feel like an Austin blogger. In early February, we had more snow than I've ever seen. Twelve point five inches--fell at one time on my land. It caused our temperatures to plummet to negative 17F the following morning. I've never been so cold, and neither had my crapemyrtles. Every...

Sometimes, projects don't go as planned. Bulbs don't grow at the same rate. Sometimes, houseplants die in their containers. If the latter happens, put them on the compost pile where they can live again as Carol of May Dreams Gardens suggests during what she terms "houseplant season." Amaryllis don't bloom. I have one amaryllis which hasn't even grown. Bought three at the same time. Planted them in the same container. Had this fantasy of three, tall, green stalks topped with gorgeous, red flowers. It was a firm bulb. Still looks good, but it's just sitting there, not moving, and not going according to my master plan. Frustrating, because I was going to photograph it for an article. As you can see, this container is so not article ready. Sometimes, I know why. Other times I don't. Nature is a mystery. It follows its own rhythms kinda like Eddie Van Halen...