and now back to our regular programming

Once again I've been AWOL for the past three days. Well, I'm always absent on Thursdays since that's my volunteer day and I have no time in the morning and that's when I read and write. Friday we had three major errands to do; stop at Spec's and stock up on liquor on our way into the city to procure a different indulgence and then CostCo to stock up on the stuff we buy there. And yes we did go on the very worst day one can possibly choose to go to CostCo...a Friday (which is bad enough) before a holiday weekend. Yikes! But, you know, CostCo has it down and we were in and out with a minimum wait time.

Yesterday though I went to a baby shower for my great niece, my sister's daughter's daughter. My sister's other daughter is here from Albuquerque visiting her mom so the three of us piled in my name sake's car (Denise's first name is Ellen) and headed to Goliad where the mother to be's mother lives and where the party was held. Vickie, my great niece and her husband live in San Antonio. I got her a baby food grinder so she can make her own baby food. I had one and our kids ate what we ate. This way their food was always fresh, I could control the quality, no chemicals etc. I don't think I ever bought a single jar of baby food, not for at home at any rate. Vickie was thrilled. She also got all the standard baby shower gifts and when little Dean Edward is born in about two months I'll have a great great nephew.

Remember when I remarked that I hadn't seen any squirrels in weeks, maybe even nearly two months? I asked my neighbor Gary if he had seen any yet since we had been talking about their absence previously and he mentioned he had seen one and figured they were coming back since we all had pecans on our trees this year. I looked up a minute ago to see two squirrels in the tallow tree outside my window. Those little fuckers better leave my pecans alone when they have cracked corn and peanuts offered.

It was overcast this morning when I got up, completely different than the clear low humidity blue sky days we've been having, low enough that my lips were starting to feel a bit chapped yesterday. Still cloudy, tall billowing cumulus with enough patches of blue for the sun to come streaming through. Probably still won't rain but at least there's some moisture up there that might want to fall. Still I was out this morning setting and moving the sprinkler around, deadheading the zinnias, and cutting back the very last of the purple coneflowers, cutting down all the volunteer rain trees from around the native peach tree and pulling wild grape vine down and out as best I could as it's starting to reach for the closest pecan tree, no no no no no, and was drenched by the time I came in. I'm going to have to get the ladder to reach the thick vine that is reaching out from the wild space.

Well, I had to bring the bird feeder back in. One or two grackles I can tolerate but now the word went out and there are five or six out there squabbling and tossing seed out left and right, intimidating the other birds. They're still not convinced it's gone, keep flying to the platform it sits on in between hogging the bird bath and splashing all the water out of it. It's like a day at the pool for them.

So now we're to the what's happening in the yard part of the program. My definitely pink new crinum lilies,

the agapanthus (nile lily) that I thought I wasn't going to get any blooms from this year has given me two,

pecans getting bigger on the trees,

and then this happened yesterday while I was gone. Marc was sitting at the dining table where he faces the window looking out over the deck when he heard a big thump, thought a branch had fallen until he looked up and saw that it was a 5' maybe a little bigger rat snake that had fallen out of the yew tree and onto the deck. He took a video through the window of it moving off and, I suppose, under the deck. It's a bit blurry but here's a frame of the video.

Big but harmless to humans. I love those big ole rat snakes. No rats around here. Having lived in an old house for over 40 years in the inner city with rats in the walls, it can live here as long as it wants. I've only seen one snake so far this year, a pretty little ribbon snake. Didn't have my device on me but it moved too fast for a picture anyway.

squirrels, birds, and trail riders

It turned cold again Tuesday night. It's overcast and in the 40˚s currently dropping into the 30˚s tonight and for a couple of nights. There are two squirrels in the little backyard that have been keeping me entertained and driving the dog nuts. I finally had to bring the one bird feeder in because I could not keep one (or both) off it. And they aren't in the least intimidated by me, holding their ground until I get about 3' away staring at me until they leap away. So now the cardinals keep flying to the tree looking for it and the squirrel(s) keep coming back to the branch looking for it as well.

Or else on the shepherd's crook trying to get at the squirrel proof one. 

Eventually I'll give in and put it back out (which I did when I had four cardinals and a chickadee sitting in the tree giving me the stink eye).

You may not of noticed, and why would you since I haven't been in the habit, but I've been trying to reply to all your comments the last several posts. I do appreciate that you take the time to tell me what you think.

It was cold in the house Wednesday night and I opted not to go to yoga. I had been feeling achy in the head and neck, a funky stomach, afib acting up because I forgot to take my pills the night before, all day. (OMG, is this covid?!) We're all so paranoid, the least little feeling of unwellness has us freaking out. But no, not covid, I'm fine today.

And it is cold today, low 30s when I got up and at midday has only made it to 40˚ and overcast. But I know why this front came in...it's the week of the trail rides that come into the city for Go Texan Day on Friday for the start of the rodeo and livestock show and the parade. The trail rides recreate the paths that the cowboys used to drive their cattle to market. When I was in high school it was the only day us girls could wear pants to school and back then it was the Rodeo and Fat Stock Show and kids that wanted to participate in a trail ride could get the week off school. The trail riders hit town on Friday and camp out in Memorial Park for the weekend. This year there are eleven different trail rides participating. The weather can be warm and pleasant up until the week the trail riders come in when it almost always turns cold and wet.

image via the internet

Right now there's at least a dozen cardinals dive bombing and mobbing the bird feeder and a goldfinch holding its perch not the least bit intimidated by the bigger birds.

getting the vaccine, confused flowers, and 2020 review

I have an appointment on January 26 at 6 PM, eleven days after the first date it had shown me two or three hours earlier, to get my first covid vaccination shot. Out of the 9 available locations I focused on the two nearest me, both nearly an hour away. It took me a good 15 minutes flipping back and forth between the two locations, constantly refreshing the sites. Four times it gave me a date and time and then before I could get name, email, and phone entered and clicked register it told me that, oops, someone else already got that one. Many times it told me no dates or times available and to try again but I persevered and finally succeeded in getting an appointment. Not my first choice in location but no farther away. I don't know which vaccine I'll get.

My sister sent me a link to a site that lists all the places in Texas that have and are distributing the vaccine and surprisingly enough, the HEB (grocery) pharmacy in this little podunk town has it but is only vaccinating front line healthcare workers right now. I imagine they have the Moderna vaccine since it doesn't need extraordinarily frigid temps to store it as I'm pretty sure the HEB doesn't have sub-zero celsius storage capacity.

It seems the word has gone out that the bird feeder is open for business. I'm seeing chickadees and sparrows and the little warblers that winter over here and white wing doves and inca doves and cardinals and goldfinches that are migrating through. And of course the curious little wrens though they don't eat seed.

Yesterday morning I looked out the back door and there was, no surprise, a squirrel on the bird feeder with it's back to me. I opened the door, it ignored me, I walked right up to it, it ignored me, I poked it on the butt, it sat up and looked at me. What are you doing I said and then it finally jumped down and went up the tree. Later in the day I saw the same squirrel, I'm sure it was the same squirrel by the way it was behaving, on the rim of the turtle pond acting sort of woozy with its tail in the water trying to get a drink which it did and then jumped down and went over to the overturned bucket on the ground upon which I had put a hand full of pecans and there it stayed. I took its picture and came inside. Haven't seen it since but that squirrel is not well.

I had thought I would get out there and clear out the last 12' in the barn yesterday as the days are nice and warm but it was so windy and gusty that raking and sweeping would have been an exercise in futility and I finally got tired of being pushed around by the wind and came in so maybe today as we're supposed to get to the mid 70s.

I saw the first bloom of the 10 petal anemone in the yard yesterday

and there is a bluebonnet plant in the front that is putting out buds. In December.

Some of the plants look like this

when they should look like this at best this time of year.

And the spring weeds in the yard have just exploded the last few days. It looks so fresh and green. In December. The woodland violets and the little yellow oxalis are starting to bloom.

This is all way early y'all.

Well, tomorrow is New Year's Eve and I suppose this is when I usually post about the past year but I think it can be summed up in a few words...as bad as we thought 2019 was, 2020 was exponentially worse, the only bright spot being that we kicked Trump to the curb. I'll leave it at that.

rain, squirrel battles, and yoga

Between last Friday night and Saturday early morning we got a little over 2” of rain from two storms. The wind was so high with the trees thrashing around during the one that blew through in the wee hours of Saturday morning that it woke me up. Or it could have been all the lightning and thunder. Needless to say I had a panicked unconsolable dog on my hands, or my head as the case may be. I went out later to see that the ground was littered with twigs, sticks, small and large branches as if we had had a hurricane blow through. It took me all day to pick them up during several sorties out throughout the day. Here's a pic. The pile on the right had been accumulating over a period of a couple of week. The one on the left was Saturday's gather and it doesn't even include the branches small enough to mow over.

The teacup bird feeder is broken again. I've been battling the squirrels over it. Usually by this time I've taken it down for the summer because of the squirrels but there's a handsome young male cardinal who comes to the shrubby tree outside the window looking for it throughout the day and if it's not there and I'm sitting where he can see me he will look directly at me and chirp and never moves far when I open the door to hang it for him. (Yes the pictures are all poor quality but they're all I got.) 

But then the squirrels see it and I have to take it down again. They are such pigs, they'll empty it. There's one young little girl squirrel who just doesn't understand why she can't see it after I take it down. She's all over the shrubby tree looking for it from different angles or on the roof or perched on the hook with just her head showing at the top of the window or she will leap onto the screen to see if she can see it from there. 

Drives the dog berserk. So basically I put it out, take it down, put it out, take it down, put it out, take it down. Sunday I thought I had a good idea. I got some admittedly old and lightweight fishing line and strung it between the hook under the eave and the branch that sticks out the farthest and hung the teacup on that. The cardinal was happy, 

the little girl squirrel was thwarted. She tried all kinds of ways to reach it but she was not brave enough to make the leap which I figured if she did it would probably knock it off the line anyway and get broken. At one point she just sat in the tree looking right at me as if to make me feel ashamed so I took pity on her and set some shelled pecans out for her though it took her some time to get brave enough to get them. 

Took the teacup down Sunday night, put it back out Monday morning, went to the feed store and got more stump/brush killer and sprayed it full strength on the poison ivy that refuses to die, took my shower, was drying off when there was a crash, looked out the window to see the fishing line broken, the teacup on the ground and the saucer broken, and a squirrel hauling ass away. 

I don't think it was the little girl but one of the fully adult ones (though this is her in the picture above, she just came to investigate). Probably the one I tried to give a heart attack or at least make it think twice about getting on the bird feeder (didn't work) when I ran at it screaming after sneaking the back door open. Little bastard jumped onto the top of my naked lady, took a flying leap from there into the tallow knocking her over and breaking her in half. To be fair, she was already cracked in the middle. So now I have to get some concrete adhesive and put her back together.

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I think I mentioned that Abby started her in person yoga classes back up a couple of weeks ago. I decided yesterday that I would go last night though I was very nervous about it even though as also mentioned it's in a big metal building with big wall sections that roll up on 3 sides making it essentially an outdoor space and big enough for us to be far apart. Once I got over my nervousness with everyone glad to see me back, I was glad to be there. I'm still doing my 20 minute routine every morning but I'm bored with it and was glad to be doing some different asanas. Obviously some of my nervousness was because the virus is still very much with us but also I think it was because a new habit had been formed, one where I just didn't leave the house except for short necessary excursions. The habit had been to go without question, then to not go without question, so last night I was having to actively go against not going. I thought I would just go once a week at first, but fuck that. I'll probably go tomorrow too.

Still have done no artwork besides those two little drawings I did in the first weeks of quarantine but I am thinking about it more. Especially since we're having days in the low 90s already.

mid-January

I saw a group of geese flying west and a large group of geese flying southeast. In mid-January.

I saw a daylily had bloomed. In mid-January.

Woodland violets, dandelions, and 10-petal anemones are blooming. In mid-January.

The woodland petal pinks are starting to put up bloom stalks. In mid-January.

The red climbing rose is blooming, the confederate rose is putting out new growth, the clover is rampant and starting to bloom. In mid-January.

I cut back one of the confederate roses earlier in the week and should cut back the other one before the new growth gets too far along. I thought about planting the camellia today since it's done blooming but decided to wait til next week. What I did do today was continue to cut out the dead canes in the climbing roses and pull out the dead branches caught in the tangle of canes. I had already cut the ones I could reach from the ground so today I got the ladder out and worked higher. It looks a lot better, cleaner, even though there are three long thick canes maybe 3/4 to an inch in diameter that I'm pretty sure are dead but they climb really high into the crepe myrtle and I'm not sure if they have growth on the ends. As you can see from my pile, I do occasionally cut a cane that looks dead but isn't. Oops.

If I had our 10' ladder I could get high enough to see but Marc basically gave it away to the guy who comes around and does some tree work for us. He asked to borrow it one day, would bring it back when he finished and Marc told him no hurry. That was before last winter. I'm going to have to go buy a new one.

I also picked up errant sticks as I happened upon them and pulled up a couple of handfuls of clover, my annual spring task to keep it from smothering the bluebonnets. My neighbor drove by and stopped one day last year while I was out there pulling up clover to tell me you know it's gonna grow back. Yes, I know.

Rocky finally got the extra downspout put in (the one on the left) and the gutter screens on to keep the leaves out Thursday. Now, hopefully, when it rains hard all the water that poured off that section of the roof (two valleys feed water onto that section) will be diverted away from the slab. I get a little nervous when it rains hard and the water starts standing along the slab.

The other thing I did yesterday was drive to the Evil Empire and get a plunger. We used to have one but it is nowhere to be found so we think it floated out of the garage and off during the flood. Anyway, the toilet in the big bathroom is flushing very slow and never completely empties so you don't want to do anything in it that you don't want to be seeing. The plunger did not remedy the situation so, luckily for me, Rocky was working at another house on the street and I was able to tell him and he'll be down to fix it.

For all it feels like spring out there, winter is supposed to make an appearance Sunday and Monday. We'll see.

I'll leave you with squirrel acrobatics. I put some shelled pecans on a slab of stone on the ground for the squirrels hoping to distract them from the bird feeder. They have so far ignored the pecans.

the summer yard part 2 – the critter version

The frogs and toads are quite noisy with their singing at night since all this rain.

Saturday I looked up, or down as the case may be, to see this pretty green ribbon snake...in the house. It seemed to have trouble getting traction on the vinyl floor and I can't imagine how it got all the way across the room from the door without me being aware of it but it did. I got my back scratcher, the nearest long handled thing, and gently herded it back out the door. It was about 18” long and not even as big around as my pinky finger.

I've seen some swallowtail butterflies in the yard and some little brown skippers and this tiny little hairstreak. It's true color is grayer than this.

I watched while this young squirrel sniffed around and then dug up a pecan and started eating it.

Big Mama hanging out.

Spider webs are everywhere. In this part of the yard I quit counting at 12.

A young banana spider with her mate,

these little green spiders with their neon orange spots,

and shield back spiders which I couldn't get an in focus picture of.

Not sure what this is but I thought it was a cool picture even if it is out of focus. Maybe a shield back spider with it's egg case seen from underneath.

I'm not sure what kind of egg case this is, my best guess from searching images is a jumping spider egg case.

Wasps tending their nest under the eave. Since wasps are only aggressive when they feel threatened I generally leave these pollinators alone unless they want to build their nest somewhere inconvenient for me and then I just wait til no one is home and knock it down.

Marc called me out to see this wasp and a wolf spider battling it out. By the time I got out there the wolf spider was dead and the wasp was dragging it across the yard.

work commences

Finally sat down yesterday and made a list of 'formulas' for my color samples for the drowned feathers and rocks and just now realized I didn't do any for the sand. I have 24 opportunities, which I thought would be plenty, and quickly realized that wasn't enough. I could cut out more fiber blanket forms but I don't know where my template is or if I even kept it. I think I did. I'm pretty sure I did but what box it is in I have no idea. I haven't found it in the places I thought it might be. I could make a new template but all the cardboard from which I make such things drowned in the flood. So I guess I'm going to have to reconsider some of my formulas.

Work on the house commenced Monday and continued yesterday. Poor Rocky. He's got too much work and he's doing his best to get them all moving forward. I understand. I understand because I have been in that situation. Not fun. Makes you not want to answer the phone. He's been here with a helper he is training the past two days. Rocky's a good man. I haven't heard him raise his voice once with his helper, just explaining what he wants.

that's Rocky on the ground, he's spent most of the last two days under the house replacing the seals and floor joists

The other thing I did yesterday was finally take the long handled nippers and the stump killer and cut down and treat the stumps of all the trees growing along the fence line in front of the shop yard on the ditch side just on one side of the driveway. Minimum 15 trees...hackberries, pecans, and a tallow. Mostly hackberries. I avoided the poison ivy which has taken hold in the ditch and on the fence as best I could, used gojo hand cleaner with cold water, then soap with cold water and I hope like hell I don't get a rash. I still have to do the fence on the other ditch side of the driveway and the shop side of both sides of the driveway but I need more stump killer. Maintaining that ditch would not be such a chore or downright impossible if it wasn't so deep and so steep and now still lots of debris from the flood.

just some of the trees

FEMA has not called. It's been two weeks since I went to the convention center and conferred with the representatives there and they told me my inspector would call within one week to set up an appointment so I guess I'll be back today to find out what's going on. Several of my neighbors have already gotten their grants. Paltry amounts, really, considering how much damage but none of us had flood insurance and while technically we are in the 1,000 year flood plain and no one living here can remember when or if it ever flooded, that makes a big difference with FEMA. Have flood insurance? You get the big bucks. Don't have flood insurance because no one ever thought it would flood here? Too fucking bad. The two awards given people that I know of whose whole house flooded got $13,000 and $12,000.  And if you don't have flood insurance and you get money from FEMA and then don't get flood insurance, if it happens again, they won't help you.  

And Trump is basically telling the Puerto Ricans 'fuck you' cause you aren't real Americans and there's a big ocean and you're in heavy debt to Wall Street because I welshed on our deal.  Such a guy, that Trump.

A few random photos...

pampas grass blooming

squirrel in the magnolia tree with one of my pecans

sparkly totems

big garden spider

birds, squirrels, and dog

I thought all of this year's cardinals had reached maturity but a young boy still getting his color has been visiting the tea cup. This isn't him but another handsome young fella. 

Right now I have regular song bird mix in it instead of just the sunflower seeds I usually put in there because the titmice and chickadees will fuss at me if I let it go empty. The other day a rare bluejay was checking it out. Occasionally one will perch in the tree beside it and give it a look but none has ever been brave enough to land on it. 

I finally cut off the dead branch that the squirrels would use to launch themselves at the tea cup. Doesn't stop them from getting on it, of course, but it does stop the tea cup from banging into the glass of the window, a little late since the glass is already heavily scratched where it hits, so now they have to approach from higher up, jump on the hanger and then climb or hang down. They torment Minnie who sits in my lap and growls at them. 

I hung a little bird house in the chinese fringe-flower tree that is right outside the window, the one the birds and squirrels use to approach the tea cup, and a young squirrel was very curious about just what that thing was. Because of where the birdhouse is hanging though, the squirrel couldn't get a good look at the front of it though it tried several branches and angles.