March 7, 2025
Music to Your Ears: Food, Fun, Family
On a misty, chilly November morning, we found joy.
It was early when we headed out to meet musicians and home-schoolers Lisa and Shane Lamb who grow their garden goals one weekend at a time. Fruit trees and vegetable beds join native plants and wildlife habitat, along with a pond bordered by perennials for pollinators and birds. Heads up: you can see it in person on the Austin Society Pond 2025 Tour in June!
When Lisa and Shane bought their house in 2013, they started planting fruit trees and laying out beds. “The main goals in our yard are growing food for ourselves, but also kind of creating a wildlife habitat,” Lisa told us. To attract even more animals with water, they worked with Hill Country Water Gardens and Nursery to build a pond in 2021.
Their children Jay and Ella love their big backyard where everyday’s a nature excursion of discovery right at home. “I think being outside just inspires creativity. They have some fairy houses they’ve been building. They’ve got another fort that they have in the back,” Shane said.
As it got more drizzly and shivery, we really just wanted to curl up with them to read a book. Enchanted with our storytime, we learned a lot about edible grasses in Shanleya’s Quest!
But first, we were treated to mini-concerts. As raindrops plopped onto the roof, we fell under the spell of Lisa’s harp. A professional harpist, flutist, and composer who also teaches, she has performed as Principal Harpist with the Austin Civic Orchestra since 2010. Lisa’s performed with the Austin Symphony, Musicians of the San Antonio Symphony, Austin Opera, Conspirare and many more.
“I would say with music as musicians, we’re always making something that’s ephemeral. It doesn’t last unless you’re doing a recording. So it’s kind of nice having the garden. It’s something visual that you can see and is more permanent, even though it’s always shifting,” she said.
Shane’s a composer who teaches piano lessons, music theory, and composition. They both teach at home in different studios, so parents often drop off children to learn from both of them. “In the garden I often have music in my head. I compose music, so I’m often kind of brainstorming new ideas or playing around with ideas as I do my work,” he said.
Lisa loves teaching children, including her own daughter, already composing music of her own.
Jay played harp for us, but he also composes for piano with his dad. Check out Shane’s wonderful YouTube channel to watch the family play.
Jay and Ella also know their plants: greenhouse tropicals, raised bed vegetables, and wild plants to forage. Shane’s a member of the Facebook group, Texas Fruiting Plant Growers.
“I just also like seeing what the plants look like. I’m always curious, like, what does a lychee plant look like? So I plant the seed and then it grows and I see it, and it’s a beautiful plant and it’s got these nice leaves,” Shane said. “A lot of it, we just go to the Asian stores and buy interesting things and plant the seeds,” Lisa added.
Their property sits on limestone, so they grow vegetables in raised beds. Free yard bonus: cool weather chickweed for their favorite pesto. The kids confirmed, “It’s so yummy!”
I’d never heard of achira (Canna edulis), but Jay and Ella could have told me that it’s an edible root crop. Use the leaves in stir fry, wraps, and salads, or steam food in them as you would with banana leaves.
With all that limestone they “own,” they were happy to have Hill Country dig out the pond! Excavated stones border the berms that Lisa and Shane planted with pollinator favorites.
Keeping to a purple and silver color palette, they include salvias, pink skullcap, lavender, silver ponyfoot and woolly stemodia.
They made sure to place it for view from the kitchen table. “It’s nice watching the wildlife when we’re eating our meals,” Lisa noted.
“And then for us when we’re outside, we’re not the type of people to ever really just sit and relax. We’re always working, working actively,” she said. “But it’s just really nice hearing the sound of water and having that peaceful spot while we’re working in the garden.”
Shane added, “It’s meditative for me. The weeding and the harvesting and caring for everything.”
Thank you for stopping by! There’s lots more, so watch now and hear the music!
