Pigs Feet and iPhones

I took the dogs (and the cat) for a walk this morning on the 50 acres. What a lovely morning to take a walk! It was a little chilly - only 45 F, but that's a nice temp for a brisk walk and the dogs love it at that temp. Or at least they are friskier when it's that temperature.

Ms. Louise, the grandmother cat, loves to go for a walk. It's just really odd. I've never had a cat that could tolerate doing what the dogs were doing - AND - actually seem to enjoy it. She tends to walk just off the path. I think she feels somewhat safer in the tall grass than on the exposed pathway. And, it keeps her from getting run over by the dogs. If she gets too far behind she'll meow to let me know that she's not with us and we should wait. However, I've discovered that if I stop and wait for her, she slows down her pace substantially. So, now, when I hear her meow, I tell her she needs to sprint. In the summer when it's hot, she will find a tree to sit in and just wait for us until we come back rather than sprint. But, this morning she was just like the dogs - frisky and happy to trot.

I had a thought as I was walking that I should have brought my camera with me. The mist rising from the pond was wonderful, the light was great and the colors are different than the last time we walked this path.

Then I realized I had my phone with me! I always try to carry my phone when I go for a walk. Considering all the potholes, the coyotes, the mountain lions and the hunters, it just seems prudent to carry it. And since I have a camera phone now, I realized I could take photos with that.

It does slay me to use the camera on the phone since it's nowhere near the quality of my camera, but when in a pinch, use whatcha got.

This is the front pond in the morning sun.

This is Louise determining how best to get around the water issue (without getting wet). The dogs just jumped right on through it.

Sherman was lead dog this morning and he's sitting on up on the hill waiting for us to catch up.

I was trying to capture the mist rising from the water this morning. I'm not sure the iPhone can adequately capture it.

The trail in the sunlight. The sun had just broken over the tops of the trees. Making everything glow. I sometimes forget to notice that glow - but it is truly Living Daylight.

And for the first half of our title today --- I saw fresh pig tracks. I was happy to have my iPhone with me. Considering the rain, these prints are most likely from last night or early this morning. They weren't huge, so these are probably one of the pigletts that is now growing up. But they weren't big enough for a sow, so they're most likely those of a "teenager".

In this shot, you can see them coming and going. They tend to like the trail as much as we do.

This shots shows them coming up from the lake onto our property.

This shot shows them going back into the woods and down to the lake area.

Check for pigs on your property. You never know when somethin's strange... in your neighborhood... and whooya gonna call? (In honor of Halloween today!)

Fall Color - Part I

It hasn't been a beautiful day here in Tioga. It's been wet, cool and rainy. Not only are all the lakes full, but so are front yards, ditches, rain barrels and, in some cases, people's cars.

I took these photos a few days ago. The color of the flora was beautiful - although it doesn't compare with the richness of the leaves in Ottawa (where I was a couple of weeks ago), at least I didn't have to look too hard to see this colorful beauty.

Tim says the plant below is called "American Beauty". That always makes me think of that movie with Kevin Spacey that I didn't really like all that well... (okay - the acting was really good, I just didn't care for the story all that much).

I bought the rose bush below from Calloway's earlier in the season. It's a gorgeous hybrid and the color and design of the blooms was outstanding when I brought it home. Unfortunately, it didn't like its transplant (or the heat) and didn't bloom all summer. But, now it's back and just as lovely as when I bought it.

Tim thinks these are called "Pumpkin Mushrooms". They sure look like it, right? He put a quarter on the edge of this one so you could see what a monster it is. We found these on the path between the little house and the guest house.

More fall color to come - at least in my photos (and hopefully in the woods too!).

It's another rainy day...just a rainy, rainy day...

A little love to Chicago for the title... and it is just another rainy day here in Tioga. And the warmth and the humidity combined make for a little supernatural beauty.

The photo below is the water that's clinging to the mite webs - mites are even smaller than most spiders, so we wouldn't even notice this web if the conditions of rain and warmth hadn't been just right. It was disconcerting though to see how many little webs were woven thru-out my garden and fruit bushes. No wonder the yield is so small this year.

I loved how the drops were standing up so perfectly at the top of the petals here.

How long do you suppose this drop can hang there, exactly like that?

I took this one because I love the color of this rose - and it hasn't bloomed in several months. I loved how the water droplets acted as a magnifying lens.

It looks like the mites have strung their Christmas lights already. Don't they know that they have to wait until AFTER Halloween?

I'm enjoying the rain and the humidity and life today.

We took the boys for a walk a while ago - you can tell because these photos are sunny and we haven't had any of that for a bit now!

Sherman doesn't like getting into the water though.  Humphrey on the other hand, was not happy we took off in the canoe without him, so he came with.  Swimming.  I wondered how far he'd actually swim to stay with us?  I couldn't make myself find out, so we only canoed in a small circle.



This is Lake Ray Roberts - our one little finger of it.  It's a man-made lake.  It's just under 30 years old and so the trees that once grew there are still there as ghosts and reminders of the fields and woods the area once was.  I like having it be a lake - even if it wasn't originally "natural" - the life that exists there now is fascinating to watch; touch and smell.  And the dogs like it too.





Humphrey is the one in the water.  Sherman sits there trying to decide how he's gonna play this.



We had a wonderful walk that day.  We don't go down to the lake often enough.  I really enjoy my husband's company, and that day was especially wonderful.

Death of a Refrigerator

The seedy underbelly of the ranch...(let's digress for a couple of minutes here - what is a "seedy underbelly" anyway? All the underbellies of our animals are soft, clean, vulnerable, tender... what's an underbelly in nature that's nasty? And then, let's talk about seedy for a moment. What's bad about seedy? Does that mean nothing's growing yet? But if there are seeds, then there's possibility...so anyway, I'm not sure that using "seedy underbelly" really gets at what I meant....)

I've discovered that living on the ranch is very different than living in the city. I guess I thought living at the ranch would be similar to living in the city, except we'd have more land. It is not that at all. It is completely different out here. For one thing, the garbarge people are sorta regional - they don't belong to a particular city. No one collects recycling here. There's a bit a snigger when you ask about it. And another thing is that it's not just a simple matter of putting the garbage at the curb. Oh no - we have to figure out how to get it .5 miles away to the road. So, stuff can sit for quite a while. But even if we could get it to the curb, the garbage folks will only pick up black contractor garbage bags of stuff. Nothing else. So if we have anything else to get rid of, we have to make an appointment with the regional "dump", put it all on the flatbed of the pickup and drive it 25 miles.

It makes me think differently about what I'm willing to bring home.

Of course, we didn't know all this when we moved out here. We didn't realize that we were really moving into a different culture with all kinds of different norms, values and habits. So, we brought our city thinking (and garbage) with us. And now, we need to get all this stuff cleaned up and moved on.

Below is the death of the original, home-built Kegorator. We're sad to see 'er go. Although Tim thinks the refrigeration unit for the freezer still works, so he took that off and we'll reuse it to air condition one of the busses Jeff just bought. Now that's recycling.

This is window glass left over from building the new terminal at DFW airport. We got a great deal on it 3 years ago. Planned on using it to build a greenhouse and to replace the garage door (when we build out the garage into Tim's office). But, we haven't gotten around to doing those things yet and so the glass sits a bit forlorn. Looks like it's trying to return to the ground as sand...maybe in a few more years it'll have done that.

Can't remember where we got this chair. Tim is looking for someone who could weld it back together and then we'll paint it and keep it.

The construction crew for our neighbors addition were sloppy guys. There's still trash on our two properties from stuff that didn't make it into the garbage cans.

This is a special plexiglass that we used to fix the roof of the car wash when there was major hail damage. We thought we could use it out here. Haven't decided how yet though.

I'm graciously calling this the 'staging area'. This is the staging area for all of our projects - no matter how many millennia they are from happening.

Okay - now this thing was really a good idea. I liked having this sink. It was supposed to be for my future greenhouse (as you can see from above, I have a lot of stuff for my future stuff....). Unfortunately Tim accidentally hit it with the Kubota and the legs fell off. I'm thinking of turning it right-side up and filling it with flowers.

Mushrooms

Just a quick update this morning... we saw evidence of the wild pigs (feral hogs) again down by the lake. We were hoping that they'd moved on, so that was disappointing. They are terrible for the environment. They dig up everything - all the flora down by the lake - so that it is completely destroyed. That then destroys the system of plants that prevent so much erosion and the the hill above where they've torn everything up starts sliding down into the lake. They also carry diseases which they can leave behind in the soil. Fortunately, we're not growing anything down by the lake (it's owned by the Corps of Army Engineers).

This morning it was a touch cooler than it has been - and there's a nice breeze, so we're thankful for a day that didn't start off with intense heat.

Because of the rain the other day, we've had a number of mushrooms popping up all over. It's surprising to see mushrooms at this time of year here, but there they are.

Mornings at Sage Creek Ranch

Morning comes really quickly around Sage Creek Ranch - there's a moment where there's no sun and then the sun is fully, roundly, hotly there.

It peeks through the trees - and thank God for the trees or it'd be much hotter, much sooner.

It brushes the well house and gives the strawberries; Dew plant and Gerbera Daisy their first dusting of the light they need to keep blooming.

It lightly strikes the lichen - but just for a moment before it's too high to burn the delicate flora from the rocks to which they tenaciously cling. The lichen turns brown by August in Tioga, Texas. But this year, we've been blessed by sufficient rainfall to keep even northern Texas green.

There are places where the trees, bushes and tall grasses are so dense that only a fragment of yellow gets through at the first light of morning

On my way back from the mailbox, I can see that the sun is already moving quickly enough through the sky to light up the driveway.

I cross the road to the neighbor's stock pond. It is beautiful in the morning - still, pristine-looking and verdant.

Even the road looks quiet and still this morning. Devoid of traffic even during our "rush hour".

Driving the dogs and the golf cart home from the mailbox, each morning is a total immersion in nature. It never fails to delight me.

Each morning, I look through the trees at the neighbor's property to see if I can spot the horses and their donkey.

What are you glorying in today?