Prairie Winds Farm

We have lived in our ranch house here in Katy, Texas for over twenty years now and I have never seen these birds, White Ibis, visit our yard.  I did have the opportunity to be blessed with their visit this past week. My sister, the Birder says that the ones with the brown feathers are immature and the white are the elder.   They flew together and moved together; slowly piercing their slightly curved, long orange beaks into the soft soil to feed. Staying less than five minutes, they flew away together.  I tried to move so close to them to get a good shot surely, I am the reason they left so soon.  This last week there have been lots of sighting of water birds up and down my street.  My neighbor had a few hundred ducks in his yard last night.  I love to be surrounded in a natural environment that allows these visitors.  There is so much construction going on around us they must have had their natural environment destroyed and are looking for food an...

Ameraucana Rooster Strutting his stuff Is this my good side??? Its been a while since I have had laying hens and a rooster.  Went to Wabash Antiques and  Feed Store in Houston  http://www.wabashfeed.com/ a few years ago and acquired an Ameraucana rooster http://www.ameraucana.org/scrapbook.html and two red laying hens.   Little did I know after taking them home that the rooster actually required a harem of hens to keep him from increased copulation with the two hens.  So... I went back and purchased four more hens and then things settled down a bit.  At sunset each day, the rooster would gather the hens up from free ranging by spreading out his wings to his sides and they would run with him into the coop.  The coop was actually an 8' by 10' hurricane fenced dog run with a screen mesh over the top. Inside the coop I placed some cinder block into two columns and made nesting shelves with hay. The soil was covered in hay so ...

Recently my daughter polished our silverplate that we are storing to later sell @ flea markets/ Canton, Fredericksburg, Wimberly.

This Thornless Blackberry was purchased from a store here in Katy, Texas two years ago, repotted two times and fertilized with bat quano. This year it produced 85 berries.

Today I made a Lemon Icebox Pie. I got the recipe from a cookbook published for Katy First Baptist Church's 100th Centennial Celebration. Its a breeze to make and quite delicious with a warm cup of tea. Whenever I have the opportunity to squeeze fresh citrus juices and freeze them for later use I do so. I utilized the lemon juice I had previously frozen for this recipe. I cheated and used a store bought crust. Here is the recipe: 1 can condensed milk, 1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice, 2 egg yolks Mix all the ingredients on low speed with elec. mixer less than one minute. Put the ingredients in a precooked pie pastry shell(400 degrees for 10 minutes) and top with three egg whites whipped until light and fluffy. Whipped Egg White Topping: The egg whites should be room temperature and to the three egg whites you add 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar and two table spoons of sugar. Mix the egg whites until they form peaks and the sugar is dissolved. Once you have added the egg whites f...

Now is the time to attend Fruit Tree plant sales in Houston and surrounding communities. The next one I know of is the Fort Bend Master Gardener Fruit Tree Sale @ the Ft. Bend County Fairgrounds, 4310 Hwy 36 S, from 9-1 on the 12th of Feb., 2011. Go to the web-site for the Fort Bend County Extension Office to get more info or learn how to become a master gardener. http://fbmg.com/ This is a photo of buds on our Meyer Lemon tree. I harvested 89 large lemons year before last from this tree but last years freeze limited this years production. I have pruned the branches and am anxiously awaiting arrival of the buds and the bees. And of course it is important to remember that the citrus tree is also a host plant for the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly as mentioned in previous blogs.

My backyard has citrus trees, lemon satsuma and orange, originally planted there not only to provide fresh citrus for my family but also to provide a host plant for the majestic Giant Swallowtail butterfly. Here is a photo of a Giant Swallowtail butterfly that I raised in captivity in my laundry room( in a zippered 14" x 30" columnar container covered in fine mesh), in order to protect it from predators such as wasps and birds when in the larval, caterpillar stage. Each day I misted the column with water and introduced fresh host plant material for the caterpillars to eat. The caterpillars in this photo of the mesh holding cage are the monarchs not giant. You can purchase these small insectaries from Insectlore.com or your local museum, zoo, or botanical gardens gift shops. The beautiful butterflies dance gently on the softest breeze and light ever gently on the tips of the new growth of leaves or on the top of a young leaf to lay their eggs. When the female lights on the ...