Spring has Sprung...

...and Queen Ginger has never been so glad to see a week end!!

On top of a long, rugged week at work,  the redbuds have come into bloom in South Texas.  This is both a blessing and a curse for nature lovers.  On the one hand, it signals the beginning of the spring growth season, and creates a sight to behold in Queen G's historic neighborhood as barren branches give way to purplish-pink flushes of bloomery, and eventually to bright green growth as the trees return to leafy splendor!

On the other hand, with the flowers come pollen, and when all the trees begin to bloom at once, pollen accumulations are measured like snowfall to warn wary allergy sufferers what they can expect for the day!


Queen Ginger's allergies are typically well controlled, but usually once a year in spring, as her body makes the adjustment to the change in atmosphere,  she will get a sinus attack that leaves her sneezing, dripping, coughing, and praying for a prompt end to her misery!  


Such was the situation this week, and after night 3 of awakening herself and the kitties with fits of coughing, Miss G decided at 3 am this morning to pull out the bottle of codeine laced cough syrup she saves for such special occasions! 

Yes, folks, this is the very same cough syrup that Houston's rap community has made famous at their special occasions, but in Queen G's case it was prescribed, not stolen from a medical center lockup but an overnight janitor strung out on crack.


However, because she took it at 3 in the morning, and her bottle was a couple of years old, Queen Ginger awakened feeling like an overnight janitor strung out on crack who had just worked a double shift!


When her alarm first went off and she stumbled down the stairs, she realized she was waaaaay too loopy to drive herself across town to work, so she went back to the sheets to give herself another hour to sleep it off.  After another good hour in the sack with Princess Shelby, Queen G felt confident she could operate her heavy machinery well enough to get herself safely across town, but was really a worthless piece of shit all day long.  


Now, it's looking like Miss G may have to miss one of the best parties of the year her in Houston! She finds it hard to believe that people actually take this stuff on purpose, solely for the purpose of making themselves feel this way!  How bad would one's life have to be to make it feel better to have the sensation that your head has been inextricably shoved into a giant marshmallow?!


Maybe if she gets herself to bed soon she can get to feeling better by tomorrow!


Werd.

Ketchup...

Okay, quickly, before Miss G passes out from exhaustion, is a chance for you to catch up:

Tomorrow is the underwriter "Booze and Schmooze" that Miss G is hosting to (hopefully) convince folks to underwrite the ball this year. Her plan is to get them drunk the minute they hit the door and convince them to write a check while they still have some control of their motor skills. Wish me luck! While Celia's sister cleaned the house today (long story), Boy G cleaned the yard so Miss G could plant some pretty flowers. They completly skipped spring gardening this year and went straight to summer, selecting heat tolerant plants that won't burn up since it is already swealtering in Texas! Pictures later.

She's also been hard at work trying to get the first fundraiser of the year to come to life, and has finally set a date and a venue. That's a load off of her mind... the venue is the hardest part. After that, it's all smooth sailing!

In other news:

The box didn't work. Color Miss Ginger surprised. What's next? A giant shop vac outfitted with a humongous coffee filter to separate the oil from the water? Meanwhile, tar balls are washing up in Alabama. Believe it or not, Alabama actually just got grosser!

AND:

Mr. Cushing swears the illegal substance wasn't steroids. And Miss Ginger wants to believe him. She's even given him his key back. But, he's going to have to sleep in the guest room until she's sure. She can't be having a 265 lb. hunk of burning love going off on her in a 'roid rage with her busy schedule! She doesn't have time for such drama!

AND FINALLY:

Betty White on SNL! What a hoot! Miss G will be laughing about "Wizard of Ass" for a long, long time!

What a Dump!

It's been a long, cold winter everywhere, and the grounds of Chez Ginger have been ravaged by the unseasonable winter we just had! This is the worst time of year for a gardener in Texas: everything you want has frozen back, and the only thing growing are the weeds that come with a vengeance once the danger of the last frost is over!

The subtropical climate extends the growing season for everything here, including weeds, and this time of year they pop up everywhere! Even though Miss Ginger tries her best to keep her yard free of them, here in the historic Heights, the lots are so small it's impossible to keep seeds from blowing over from less pristine yards! The worst are these dandelions that take over everything, and they make wimpy yellow flowers that blow seeds everywhere! The challenge for Texas gardeners is not how to make things grow- around here, you can pretty much stick it in the dirt and it will prosper! The bigger challenge is keeping the beds clean a neat!

Thank Goddess for Miss Ginger's favorite garden product: Roundup! (Not to be confused with Miss Ginger's favorite drag show: RoundUp!

She sure does wish they made hairspray in the handy "Pump and Go" container!

Miss G knows that eventually the Texas heat will burn up these tender spring weeds, and they will be choked out on the lawn by aggressive St. Augustine runners. Meanwhile, she'll spend her weekends spraying and plucking- weeds that is! A real lady never plucks- she tweezes!

A Sure Sign of a FABULOUS New Year!

Miss Ginger has always found cardinals to be her favorite thing about the New Year. Here in Texas, almost on cue, they begin to show up in our barren gardens and browned out lawns, adding a bright splash of color to an otherwise dreary period for us. Late December and early January is our worst time of year, with a damp, invasive cold that soaks into one's pores! Cardinals are natures bright reminder that better times and brighter days are on their way!

Miss Ginger is also amazed by the way they are always paired! While the drab female hunts, and pecks, and forages for seed, the handsome husband prisses and preens and proves him dominance.

Miss G looked out the window this morning and saw her first pair of cardinals for the new year:

Oops! Wrong pic! Here's the one Miss Ginger intended!

"May the cardinals of happiness grope their way into your New Year!"

Much Love,

Miss Ginger, Shelby, Jackson, and Nog!

Course Correction

Sometimes we all make bad decisions. Miss Ginger has been living with 2 such decisions for about 4 years now, and had decided to do something about it!

Bad Decision #1- Birch Trees

About 5 years ago when the house was expanded and the back patio was created of flagstone and brick, Miss Ginger had the stonemason leave a little semicular clip in the corner to make a planting area, and she planted 5 little birch trees. So adorable, with little uplights and everything.

But now, they have just become the nightmare trees from hell! They drop shit on the patio all year long. Vines from the neighbors yards crawl across the fence and climb up in them. Their branches tangle in the power lines and phone lines. And birds sit in them and shit all over the patio table. They need to go!

Bad Decision #2- Hot Tub

This seemed like a great idea at the time! I guess Miss G had visions of a whole lot of this:

Instead, to Miss G it felt a whole lot more like this!

What a pain in the ass that thing was! Keeping the sanitizer level consistent was a nightmare, and the water just never seemed "clean" to Miss G. The first time it leaked, we fixed it. The second time it leaked, Miss G realized that it would continue to be a problem until the 10 miles of flexible piping that form its bowels got replaced. Miss G decided "fuck it" and shut the Goddam thing off at the breaker. It always made her skin itch anyway! It now serves only as a play surface for Nog.

So, off they both go. Of course, Boy Ginger wanted to do all these projects himself, but the ever clever Miss G said "Hell, no, we are hiring professionals!" So, she found an adorable little contractor who is going to rip out the hot tub and extend the deck into that space, and also provide some storage underneath and additional seating up top. And Miss Mary Beth is going to take her turbocharged chainsaw to the birch trees, and off they go! Projects that would take Boy G several months will be finished and cleaned up in no time flat!

All that will be left for Boy G is to plant a more appropriate specimen at the corner of the patio (Miss G is thinking bird-of-paradise), and then Miss G can add some fall color to the planter boxes!

Now that we have FINALLY reached that GLORIOUS weather stage that Texas gets to enjoy for about 2 months, Miss G can enjoy her back yard and spend more time with Nog! It's beautiful outside- a perfect 70 degrees with no humidity and not a cloud in the sky! We'll get to enjoy this until about Thanksgiving, when it is likely to get rainy! How's your weather?

It's here!

The heat, that is! The infernal Texas heat that will be us until late October! That humid, sweat through your panties kind of heat that makes you think, just briefly, that Texas may NOT be heaven on earth! I know it gets warm everywhere, but honey, if you've never been hot in Texas, you've never REALLY been hot!

Once it gets hot, everything southern kicks into bloom, and in addition to jasmines that fill the air with fragrance, it time for the quintessential among all things southern, the magnolias. Miss Ginger noticed the buds a couple of days ago, and this is one of the first of the huge, creamy flowers that will open over the next few month! This tree was here when Miss G bought the house, and it is HUGE! This bloom is a good 12-15 inches across! Whoever planted this tree really put it way too close to the structure, but it is so gorgeous and healthy that Miss G just puts up with the mess. Ya see, as pretty as magnolias are, they drop SOMETHING just about 24 months of the year! Each bud (and there are hundreds) is covered in a velvety brown sheath, and as the bud bursts open, the sheaths fall to the ground to be swept up. As each bud gives way to a flower, they eventually turn brown and fall for another big cleanup! Then, a cone forms where each flower bloomed, and produces red seeds that fall to the ground in the fall. After the seeds fall, then come the cones! And then, winter storms blow down the weakest branches and leaves, and the whole process starts again next spring! I guess the belles of the old south had the field hand to clean the stuff up. Luckily, Miss G has an OCD lesbian to take care of the mess her tree makes!

Speaking of OCD, Miss Ginger had a Marie Osmond meets Martha Stewart kinda day, as she prepared her groceries for another week on Nutrisystem®. Miss G knows herself well enough to know if she gives herself the chance to cheat, she will, so she repackages everything in the correct portion size as soon as she gets it home.

Now, back to gardening. Remember the hanging garden that Miss G planted a few weeks back? Can you believe there is a baby tomato on there already?! Those plants have really grown! I guess I'm gonna have to get some overalls and a funny hat like Weezer Boudreaux!

Miss Ginger is ELECTRIFYING!

Remember the fountain that Miss Ginger made in the garden a couple of weeks ago? Well, ever since then there has been an ugly (and unsafe) green extension cord running along the gravel path to an outlet near the backdoor.




Now, Miss G, being the outdoorsy girl that she is, had the foresight to have the contractors install a dedicated circuit of electrical outlets all around the house when it was remodeled, to be used for seasonal lighting displays, landscape lighting, etc. Pretty clever, huh?
However, in this case it's not doing Miss G any good at all, since it's up under the eaves, and she needs it down near the fence, a good 10 feet from the house. The only way to get there is under the gravel path, so Miss G made the Boy pull the gravel back and dig a trench from the wall to the fountain. Not fun!










After that, Miss G installed cable into a watertight plastic coated flexible conduit, and attached a waterproof outlet box with a rain hood to the end. It kind reminded Miss G that she needs to make an appointment for that colonoscopy!
Once the conduit was prepared, she attached the box to the fencepost, layed the conduit into the trench, and ran the other end to the existing outlet box, where it was attached with waterproof connectors.

Now everything is sealed up, safe and sound, and the fountain is babbling happily with no worries of trips or electructions from that ugly extension cord!

Tommorrow, Miss Mary Beth comes with the mulch, and the real beautification begins!

What's So Good About Good Friday?

Well, in addition to being able to post this picture of this cute little church boy playing Jesus in the passion play, it's Boy Ginger's last day of work before a week of "staycation"! Miss Ginger has a honeydo list a mile long for him, and she has a list of her own to get accomplished! By the end of next week, Chez Ginger will shine like the top of the Chrysler Building, soon to be known as the Hyundai Building at the rate we're going! ( I stole that joke from Sands and have to give credit since he may be a reader!) There's errands to do, gardens to clean, closets to sort, and naps to be taken! MBC is coming on Thursday with a load of mulch, which is my FAVORITE gardening activity of the year. Having fresh mulch is like getting new carpet for the yard! It looks so clean and uniform! I can't wait to post B&F photos of the "transformation"!

TTFN- gotta get to the office and hope my boss take the afternoon off so I can too!

Les Jardins de Ginger!

Miss Ginger has been gardening her little tail off, and she finally has pictures for you to see!
You know she's a "before and after" kinda girl (guess it's that whole "transformation" thing?!) so here's the side entrance to the house "before".
Here in south Texas the winters are so humid that almost any outdoor flat surface will become covered with dark mold, so after Boy Ginger went crazy with the power washer, Miss Ginger came behind and planted birds of paradise to brighten things up!


The drunk driver made a mess of the azaleas, but Miss G got a few good flushes of blooms anyway! That bright pink color is almost flourescent it's so bright!

Miss Ginger found these great planters at Sam's Club, so she made this cool fountain out of them. Next week when he's on vacation Boy G will have to run a buried conduit out to it so she won't have to use an extension cord.













When Texas's favorite department store became America's Favorite Department Store, there was all new Christmas trim bought for every store, and somehow Miss G ended up with these giant wire kissing ball frames in her yard. They've been on the side of the house under a pile of magnolia leaves for God knows how long, so Miss G pulled them out and planted them as hanging baskets. There's ivy planted in them that she intends to train aound the curlycues.



By this point there's barely a bare spot left, but Miss G wanted to plant tomatoes (or tamaduhs as they call them in Texas!) There was no where to go but up, and Miss G had seen this clever way to grow tomatoes upside down in a catalog, so she decided to give it a try. One of the toughest parts of vegetable gardening in Texas is fighting back the weeds and bugs, and with them up above ground like this she's hoping to avoid both problems!

Nog seems quite happy that his room is all clean! He even got his furniture power washed!

And Miss G is tuckered out and ready to crawl up on the porch with Nog and take a nap!

Miss Ginger Forgot the Most Important Parts!

Yesterday had so many fabulous bounties that Miss G forgot a couple!
While she waited at the airport for her flight, she got a call from Boy Ginger's boss letting him know that he WILL officially be "going forward" with America's Favorite Department Store! He wasn't too worried, but you know how a loose end hanging can make you uneasy, especially when it's hanging longer than expected! So that's official, and the job actually should become a bit easier and more focused on the parts he enjoys the most!
And then, when Miss G went through the mail, she found her income tax return had come back from the accountant, and she's getting a world record refund, for her at least! Woohoo!
And now she wakes up and it's beautiful day for gardening!

Gardening, Day 2!

A second day of gardening has left the grounds at Chez Ginger presentable, but there's still lots of work to be done! And, there are no pics, because by the time Boy G finished powerwashing the flagstone patio, it was too dark to take photos! The G's LOVE Daylight Savings Time, because it give them extra time in the evenings to get things done! Miss Ginger wishes we would stay on it all year long! Who cares if we go to work in the dark? Anyway, we'll get some pics posted when we can.

The "color of the year" this year is pink, so there's pink geraniums and petunias in abundance. And some Dusty Miller to brighten things up! Dusty Miller doesn't flower, but Miss G loves any plant that has a fabulous drag name! (And it holds up well in our Texas heat!)

What are you planting this year?

Miss G is WORE OUT!!

That's wore- there's no "H"! And she's tired because she gardened all day long! The beds and planters are all a mess since the ex left, and with the sprinler broken, she hasn't seen any point in replanting. But now that the sprinkler is fixed she has no excuse! So she's pulled weeds, thrown out dead plants, killed others that she hates because they are too invasive, and hauled pots and dirts around until she can't haul no more! She's sore and tired, and still has a mess on her hands so she can't even post pics! Tomorrow will be clean up and replant day, and hopefully there will be something picworthy by the end of the day!
She did find a tiny little baby turtle in the yard, which, as she figured, was an excapee from the neighbor, who breeds turtles in his yard. He said I probably have a momma and more babies back there somewhere, because that turtle was a newborn, and way too tiny to have made it from his yard. So, tomorrow Miss G continues Mission Turtle Rescue!

PS: Did you know a group of baby turtles is called a "clutch" of turtles?! How gay is that?!

Disaster Strikes Chez Ginger!

For the past 3 days Miss Ginger has lounged around the W Hotel in Atlanta while Boy G did the duties of his day job. Not a bad gig, but kinda boring, so Miss G was thrilled when the Boy got ahead of schedule and was able to leave earlier than expected this morning. They got to the airport in Atlanta just in time to move from their 4:30pm flight to a noon departure, saving them a long afternoon of airport cocktails in the president's club.

The trip home was uneventful, but when they got home they discovered that disaster had struck (had stricken?) at Chez Ginger.

Apparently some drunk lost control of his car and ran across the end of Miss G's driveway, tearing out a bouganvilla that Miss G hated and damaging some azaleas that Miss G loves. Thank goodness the tree stopped the truck, which apparently suffered a broken oil pan (from the stain Boy G saw in the street) and I'm sure cracked it's radiator. The neighbor talked to the guy, and reported the incident to the police, but really, no harm was done other than some uprooted shrubs and some displaced dirt. It's a good thing Boy G's truck was parked at the airport or it would have gotten hit! Luckily, the weather is supposed to be warm and sunny this weekend, so Boy G can do some gardening. And if he does a really good job, perhaps Miss G will fix him a bloody mary or 2!

"The Last Rose for your Valentine"-

When I was just starting my own gardening, I had the hardest time remembering the best time to prune. Momma Ginger told me one time "cut the last rose for your Valentine, then prune it back hard for the new season." She said she didn't know if it worked everywhere, but it's the rule I've followed for years on the Gulf Coast. It makes sense, because by Valentine's Day the chance of us getting a hard freeze is pretty slim. It's more likely that we will have a warm, wet snap that will sprout new growth, and you want to prune before that.

Miss G has been looking forward to pruning day, because she's had some things looking pretty scraggly since the hurricane. Those poor hibiscus (hibisci?) needed it badly, and there's this umbrella palm that get's totally out of bounds (it needs to go completly!)

As Miss G hedged and trimmed and cleared, it occurred to her how much the rules of Texas Gardening are pretty much the same as the rules of Texas Drag!

Rule #1- "Cover up what ain't pretty"! For gardening, it's "cut off what ain't pretty". And for you drag queen gardners, please don't get these 2 mixed up. That would truly be a hot tranny mess!

Rule #2- "Bigger is better". Boobs, hair, blooms,- it's Texas, for Gawd's sake!

Rule #3- "It'll grow back". (with limited exceptions. see rule #1) For drag queens, shave it, trim it or tan it. In gardening, prune the hell out of it- it'll grow back!

Rule #4- "It gets uglier before it gets prettier". If you've seen my transformation video you know what that means for a drag queen. In gardening, when you first prune, it kinda looks a fright util things start to fluff back up a bit.

I could go on and on, but I won't!

When do you prune in your neck of the woods?

Frigid....

That little groundhog saw its shadow, leaving all my yankee friends with 6 more weeks of winter.
Here in south Texas, our highs will be in the mid 60's and our lows wth dip down to the 40's.
February begins our gardening season; ceremoniously in Texas, we prune back the roses the day after Valentine's to start their flush of new growth, and before you know it we're spending the summer fighting back weeds. Gardening in Texas isn't like gardening in the north- it's not about encourging things to grow! It's about controlling the growth of the plants you want to keep them neat and "in bounds", and eliminating the sprouts, shoots, runners, and weeds from all the plants you don't want before they take over the yard.
Miss G grounds are a mess right now! As soon as the ball is over, she will have to get Boy G out there with a rake and shovel to get it pretty enough to post pics for you!