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There are two hummingbirds of the black chin variety, I believe, that are taking advantage of the hospitality at 1911. One may be Pondacherry who was with us from about this time last year through September. We were a little more on top of things this year and have had the feeder out since the first of the month. There are also a couple of things blooming in the xeriscape that they should find attractive. We welcome them and hope they stick around all season to quarrel over the feeder.
Saturday I spent over half the day on some BLM property know as the Cross Bar about 15 miles northwest of Amarillo. There is a helium plant there and the 12,000 acre Cross Bar was formerly Bureau of Mines property because of the helium extracted from the natural gas. At one time helium had some strategic value but doesn’t anymore and the BM turned it over to the BLM. It is the only BLM land in Texas. I was there as part of the Texas Master Naturalist training and we were guided by Adrian Escobar (see picture above), who is in charge of the property. He is a wildlife biologist and a young (30’s is my guess) fellow of pleasant demeanor. He had a lot of knowledge to share with us and showed pleasant enthusiasm doing so. The picture above is of him speaking to us from inside a pig trap. He told us they, um, removed 181 pigs last year. I did not know we had feral pigs in our area. He took us to several canyons and talked about the things they were doing to manage the range, such as prescribed burns. He hopes to eventually reintroduce bison. All very interesting. Note the Observation Map link among the links on the right side of this page. The Amarillo Northwest (AMNW) observation facility is located on the Crossbar.
It was a pleasant day for stomping around the countryside but the day before was very windy. At least one bigish elm limb was brought down and we inherited a fresh supply of plastic bags. On the way to church Sunday we passed barbed wire fences that were little more than trash heaps with tumbleweeds for ornamentation.
Jill drove in Tuesday evening and went with us Wednesday to Juanita’s funeral. The burial was at the Methodist Cemetery in Dorn, Texas, where Max had once had a church, maybe his first one. Dorn is near Abilene and Jill and Joyce drove down for the burial. I offered to drive Joyce but she said she’d rather talk to Jill than me so Kari and I went home after the service (and lunch). There was weather around the area and J&J managed to navigate it without incident. They said the Tulia area looked like a winter wonderland when they passed though it because of the hail piled up on the ground. Fortunately the hail storm was over by the time they came along. Joyce drove back down to Plainview Saturday and helped max plant some vegetables. She took a planter box she had on hand and they set it on an old dresser laid down with the flat back up for elevation so Max doesn’t have bend down to tend his vegies. She plans another trip to expand on the container garden. Max expressed to her when we were there for the funeral that he wished he had a garden and she figures this will give him something to putter with without it being too taxing.