
Most of the week was devoted to mowing the south end. Kari was having a bible study at her house and wanted her place mowed. No problem. I was going to mow it anyway. It only takes around three hours to mow the south end but it takes at least that long to trim it. That may not sound like a lot of time, but that’s a net figure. Add in time spent spraying weeds and a morning spent working at Wildcat Bluff and it seemed a lot like work. Wednesday I was rained out so those net hours were compressed into four days. However, even if I do say so myself, by the time I was finished the south end looked like J.A. his own self was back in action. The north end will get a similar treatment in the coming week.
As part of the Texas Master Naturalist training, I spent Saturday morning out at the Alibates National Monument. Friday evening through Saturday afternoon was a lively time weather-wise but we managed to get in a walking lecture on the Alibates geology and archeology. The National Park Service administers the Alibates and surrounding national recreation area and they are doing a nice job of building trails and making a lot of information available at the information center. They’ve also put in a nice native plant garden around there. After hearing about some of the highlights the recreation area offers that I didn’t know about before, I’ll look for an opportunity to explore them. It has gotten its share of rain and is very green and buggy. I’ll have to get back in the habit of dousing myself with repellant, even on SA. I thought I might knock around Riverland a little bit while I was out that way, but after I was through with the mornings activities I wasn’t too inclined to do more hiking and slapping. Still, I stopped by Riverland but it was too muddy to drive around in it and there was an ominous thunderhead that looked like it might be headed that way so I just went home.
One of the things I learned on the Alibates hike was that bear grass (yucca) blossoms are edible. The rain has caused the yucca to bloom as though it hasn’t in years, which I guess is mostly true. One doesn’t notice how much yucca there is on the range until the white blossoms make it prominent. Some say the blossoms taste like asparagus. To me it tastes like something you would put in a salad. Anyone wishing to augment their salads with something exotic can do so as much as they like, at least until the blossoms are spent.
We bought a few more plants at the nursery and they got rained in good after we planted them. We haven’t had to water even new plants lately because of frequent showers. That will stop eventually and we’ll have to get back in the watering routine, which won’t be easy now that we are spoiled.