Backyard surprise

I have a passion flower vine hiding in the bushes. It's actually an escapee from my neighbor's yard, but who cares? It's everywhere. I've only seen a couple of flowers, and a couple more buds, but I'm hopeful for a nice little flowering vine in the near future. It's a gorgeous flower, almost alien-like with its tendrils, and it smells divine. Yea neighbors that garden!

I did finally meet the nice lady next door. She's lived in the hood for 15 years, and seen lots of people come and go, mostly due to "divorce," spoken with eyeroll. Really, I think she's mostly noticed yards, as she's an avid gardener. Her backyard is nicely landscaped, with a cute little pool and a fountain that has a resident turtle. She's working on a butterfly bush that she's training to run up the fence between our yards, which, if successful, will be quite the beautiful barrier.

Of course, the reason I finally introduced myself was because she'd stealthily mowed my front yard. I thought that was a little weird. I mean, it was a little long, but I'm pretty sure the nice high school boy next door (the other next door) was planning on mowing it this weekend for me. Did she already think us slackers? How could she tell? Hell, I don't even own a lawn mower--I was so happy to have the high schooler come over and offer. The plan actually had been to buy a mower (it's still in the long-range plans) and start to do my own lawn, but hey, if a 15-year-old boy wants to do it for me for $20, I'm going to let him. Besides, he could use the money (probably on dope, but hey, he's 15...)(Not that I suspect my nice new neighbor boy of being a pothead; it's more like I suspect all high school boys to be potheads. I was a high school teacher, after all.) (sometimes I go a little crazy with the parentheses.)

Anyway, while I'm not 100% sure she didn't mow my lawn because she thought it looked like crap, I don't really care. The lawn looks much nicer. The backyard still looks like crap, but I'll let the 15yo have that one.

Speaking of backyard, here's a picture of part of mine:


The oleander bush in the back corner is out of control, but I'm probably just going to let it flower all summer before I cut it back. In fact, the whole gardening thing will probably have to really wait a year before I can attend to it. But I am very excited about the potential of the yard. It's a good size, though not the typical giant-size of many Austin backyards. It's defining feature is the large, white masonry sound wall that blocks some of the noise from McNeil. Surely one can do something really special with that, I'm just not sure what. Right now, there are a line of flimsy trees in front of the wall--seriously, one is actually only propped up with a piece of wood. Another is at a 45 degree angle. It's stupid. I need to attack the trees with a pruning bush (the neighbor mentioned this as well, as some of the trees are rubbing against the fence). Of course, I know squat about pruning, but arborists can be pretty expensive, so I'll probably go the instant internet expert route. And good luck to me when I do.

Oh, one more thing: Tricia requested more pictures of the my kitchen to accompany my last entry, so I'm going to add them to the previous entry in the appropriate places. Why not?