Author: rakeeter

December 18 White egg mystery

For some time now there has been a mystery involving the appearance of white chicken(?) eggs randomly on the place, usually in or close to the northwest quadrant. You see, none of the resident chickens lay white eggs. Their eggs are mostly a shade of beige, but some a light shade of green. Plus, they lay them in the boxes designed for that purpose in the chicken house, not indiscriminately around the prairie.

September 2 It was time for a quarterly visit to Alibates National Monument to check on it for Texas Parks and Wildlife, just to make sure nothing had changed that would impact the Great Texas Trails map. Kari accompanied me and we found that the road to the visitor center was closed for replacing. It being a temporary condition, I don’t think it needed to affect the map. It was a nice cool morning and we hiked the Mullinaw trail that runs along the river. Flies were a nuisance but we had a nice hike nevertheless. After an early lunch in McBride Canyon next to the rock house, we headed home.

August 9 There was a new helper out at the Bluff today. I was watering and weeding in the butterfly garden when I noticed a raven, or a crow, I wasn’t sure which, on the sidewalk. It was pretty close and got closer as I spoke to it. I figured it was someone’s pet. It seemed interested in what I was doing, or maybe it was hoping for a handout. At one point, while I was bent over pulling weeds, it flew over and settled on my back. I try to be on good terms with most of God’s creatures, but this was pushing it. I explained it wasn’t much fun pulling weeds, even with a raven on my back. When I straightened up it flew back to the sidewalk and continued to monitor my activity. Later I was informed it was a veteran of the wildlife rehab center and was thus accustomed to people and to getting handouts. I’m told it likes apples, which we have plenty on SA, so I’ll take a few next time I go to the Bluff in case it is still around. The folks at the rehab center named it Mavis. I think I’ll call it Wild Thing, WT (dubtee) for short.

There are a couple of hornytoads I see around the Bluff. It is always nice to see them, but these two added a new twist to hornytoad behavior. They both wagged their tail at me, almost like a dog. I haven’t seen that before.

It’s the middle of July and we settled into a summer routine. Our Red River outing has come and gone. Seems to go by so fast. It was a good trip, I think everyone will agree. No one was interested in fishing which gave us more time for other activities, such as hiking. We scouted out a couple of hiking trails we hadn’t hiked before. The first one was to Cabresto Lake. It was more of a road than a hiking trail but we left Jill’s vehicle and ventured on by foot. Some of us petered out before going very far, but Kari, Jill and I wanted to make it to the lake. I think we got pretty close but I finally turned around because I figured others that had gone back to the car would be wanting to go back to town. Along the road I got to see a pair of spotted fawns. I’ve never seen any before. Don’t know where the mother was, close by no doubt. It started to rain on the way back and a couple in a Jeep offered us a ride. We were crammed in with a man and a woman, their baby in a car seat and their two small dogs. They let us out after it stopped raining, and we made our way back to the car without any problems.