by rakeeter 
With the rain we had last weekend, SA has greened up nicely. I spent some time on the mower this past week and will again in the coming week. In fact, with the way the grass is growing it may be a matter of starting all over again as soon as I’ve finished going over the place. Or not. We’re going to have a stretch of hot and dry which, without any additional moisture, could make the grass go dormant. We shall see. Continue reading “Green fields”
by rakeeter 
We are still bouncing back and forth between spring and summer. Thursday was hot with a strong west wind. Humidity was about 12%. We’ve dodged the hail, high winds and worse that have afflicted the Panhandle this month but we’ve also dodged the rain. I’ve recorded less than half an inch of moisture for May. While it was hot Thursday, there have been some chilly days this week as well. One day I might head off for work in shorts and a T-shirt and the next day in jeans and a couple of layers on the top end. We have some relatively cool weather in the forecast and ‘spec we better enjoy. It’s likely summer will set in any day now. Continue reading “Memorial Day”
by rakeeter While digging some soil out of the dirt mound to build Joyce some melon mounds on the caliche, I unearthed a blind snake. It could have been a New Mexico blind snake or a plains blind snake. If a NM blind snake, it was pretty far east of their normal range and if a plains, then it was north of its usual territory according to my Texas snakes field guide. I think it more closely resembled the picture of the NM blind snake in the guide, being rather pink. It was a feisty fellow and did its best to slither away but being only 5-8 inches long it just couldn’t cover ground all that fast. And then there was that whole white cane and dark glasses business to further impede.
Sometime in the last year or so, Rebecca found a carcass of what appeared to be a blind snake in their driveway. It had been thoroughly rendered two dimensional by vehicles but was still recognizable as a snake and not a worm, which the species closely resembles. Other than that I had never seen one before, which is not surprising sense they spend their lives underground. I guess the one mashed in the driveway tried to buck the system.
by rakeeter 
Joyce hollered for me to come a running shortly after breakfast this morning. She was headed out the front door to plant some of the flowers she had yet to get into the various pots around the house and saw a big white bird in the pond. We didn’t get very close to it so we didn’t get a real good look, but I think it fit the Audubon bird guide description and picture of a great or common egret. It was considerably larger than a cattle egret so I think we can rule that out.
Later, or maybe earlier, Kari saw the egret strolling around the side of the house and Chris took this picture. I was concerned it might have been dining on the gold fish in the lily pool but Joyce and Rebecca confirmed the fish were still there after the bird was gone. It might have gobbled up a few frogs while wading in the pond but it was chilly this morning so maybe the frogs were sleeping in and escaped notice.
by rakeeter 
Saturday morning was beautiful down in McBride Canyon and along the river. I wish you could have been there. I joined seven others in a hike along the McBride/Mullinaw trail which follows the river for a couple of miles. Led by an Alibates volunteer, we were birding. The morning was cool and it wasn’t buggy down along the river bottom. A breeze sprang up about 9 o’clock and made a sound blowing through the cottonwoods that was like standing on a beach and hearing the waves expend themselves on the beach in a faint popping of the bubbles in the foam.
As for birds, there weren’t that many and they were hard to see unless they were on a dead cottonwood limb. We retraced our steps and drove back to McBride Canyon where the group again went in search of birds and with similar success. I grew weary of peering at faint specs on tree limbs through my binoculars and wandered off toward the rock house. While walking around it I caught sight of a turkey some ways away and listened to it cluck. The clucking made me wonder if it was alerting the rest of its tribe to my presence or, maybe, it had some little ones it was herding to safety.
I wandered in the direction of the turkey and climbed a little knoll. It gave me a good view of the canyon and I was rewarded by seeing a couple of mule deer emerge from the creek bottom, cross the road and proceed up the other side of the canyon. At one point they stopped and stood still as statues for some time while watching me watch them. Finally they continued on their way and disappeared over the canyon rim.
At the Alibates visitor center our guide showed me how to operate an atlatl. It was interesting but would require a lot of practice before I could hope to hit anything but the ground. The visitor center is very nice with its gardens of native plants, picnic areas and information available inside. That part of the country is about as green as it can get right now and the wildflowers put on quite a show.