23 October 2026….finally

I am so proud of myself. 

I got a new house about 18 months ago, and I have big plans that I want to work on. But it will be slow getting some things done. 

And to help me do some planning, I have been using AI, specifically ChatGPT, to help me design my yard.

 I want to use mostly native plants.

 Part of the reason is because, apparently, the sprinkler system here was trashed before I moved in, or before the people that lived here before me moved in.So I want to just get rid of all the sprinklers, grass, and I want to put down bricks and flagstone, and several different kinds of native plants that do not require tons of water.

I don't want to look for just "native Texas" plants, because Texas has too much variety. But I want to look for, specifically, native to Bexar County and San Antonio, where I live.

I can’t do everything very fast, plus I need to hire someone to do most of the work. If anyone wants to be a land scraper you are more than welcome to help. It's going to probably be a 5-year project for me to get trees and plants and rock and different things that I want, but that's how it goes. Plus since I can’t do the work by myself, I need to find someone who can help out of the goodness of their heart or pay someone who has the right skills.

 But back to the fact that the place has grass, and most of my neighbors have grass. I don't know who sold the idea for grass in south Texas, but that has got to be the most idiotic idea that has ever existed. Someone was a maniacal genius.

It is so damn hot here. And you spend so much money on water.

Plus, the water company has water restrictions.  I would rather have stuff that looks awesome and doesn't require a lot of water.

Plus, if I put rock and flagstone, it might help keep in a bunch of the water in the ground.

There are so many fun plants.

I went to the nursery the other day.

The specific nursery I went to has native Texas everything, and some of that stuff would not work for my yard because Far East Texas is so wet that you cannot  plant anything like that in San Antonio.

And the farther west you go, it's a lot more dry.

 There are plants that grow in east Texas that do not grow here in San Antonio and Bexar County.

But that is just a little bit of what I want to do.

I've thought maybe buying a couple trees before the end of the year and planting them so they will have a good start. But I really want to make sure I kill the grass and have all of it tilled out. I just can't get past the idea that people actually want or ever wanted lawns here in South Texas.

 Whoever decided they should have lawns in Texas, like people have in the Northeast or farther north. I know I said that already.

 And anyway, I do have the possibility of getting snow here, but it might only last a week if we get snow at all. The last time I had snow was probably 5 years ago.

And it did shut down the entire state of Texas.

 And in some ways, I did not mind, but it did get annoying because you weren't able to flush your toilet because the water got turned off.

 And I really appreciate a flush toilet.

That is part of why I want stuff to be native, because native plants, they can already handle the environment and they look pretty darn nice.

I would rather have water for things like toilets that really need water. I can live without lots of conveniences like light in our modern world, but plumbing is essential. And I do not want to think about a world that does not have plumbing.

But just to show you a few of the pictures that I designed for my yard using ChatGPT, I have a few ideas. For the most part, I'll probably keep my front yard very native to San Antonio and Bexar County. My backyard, I could play with a little bit more. I'll just find plants that can survive in Bexar County. I probably won't look for everything to be native back there.

 But it's a very strange thought about how I want t create my yard and my house.