Traditions

 We have a few traditions.  I know I've mentioned before that we have a Christmas Eve tradtition.  But we have a couple of others.

Tulips is one, for Otter.  This was probably taken a few days ago, since the violets still look like weeds here.  The violets have since started blooming, I think that they probably remember me telling them last year to straighten up and bloom.  Or else I was going to yank every last one of them out.

There is a violet visible in the lower corner of this shot, but look at that tulip!

This picture should actually be after the next one.  Since they are the same type of tulip, just at different blooming stages.

The one behind this one is probably a different variety, note the lack of yellow on the edges of the red petals.

It doesn't resemble one I've ever seen, but it's a bluebonnet!  It's a Misplaced Texan, and we sometimes react in strange ways to the non-native environment.  But it's a 'bonnet and I'm not complaining!  It didn't get much bigger than this and has in fact already been taken out to the back yard to fill in a hole the dogs dug.  But we enjoyed it while we had it.  It did not develop the strong, sweet fragrance that they normally have.  It was taller and not nearly as spread out as they generally are.  But who cares!  It was a bluebonnet and we enjoyed it.

This is one of our other tradtions.  I  guess you could call it one.  Redbud trees are just about my favorite tree.  This one is 3 years old now, it's grown quite a bit and is blooming more each year.  Otter took this picture this afternoon.  We had one at our old house and it was huge - much, much bigger than they normally get.  As a result, it was also extremely brittle and we eventually had to cut it down.  Sad day for me.  But then we put the pool in the spot where the tree had been, and because of that we didn't replace the tree.  After we moved to our current home, I informed Bill that I wanted a redbud tree and when we bought trees a couple of years later, the first one he bought was my redbud.

Here's a closer shot of the blooms.

Another tradition is that we have tacos on March 30.  Because on March 30, 1992, I made tacos for dinner.  And went into labor a few hours later!  Otter says that she knows she had no choice, she had to become addicted to Mexican food and the hotter, the better.  She's right, by the way.  So we had tacos tonight.  And beans.  And Nuclear Rice.  Otter made salsa, she used several jalepenos and one habenero pepper.  She also used a couple of tomatos, onion, bell pepper, salt and lemon juice.  She would have used more habaneros, but they were already going bad and only one was still good.  It was fairly hot, but not as hot as it sounds.  Or maybe we're just immune!  Whatever, it was still very good.

She is her parent's daughter, after all.  The hotter the pepper, the better it tastes.  If you can still actually taste something after that, it's not hot enough.

(Note of warning:  Expect political stuff soon.  And another warning:  We could well be considered the poster family for extreme conservatism).