Sunday Stills: Wildflowers

We've had plenty of rain this year--in contrast to last year's extreme drought--so the wildflowers have definitely been taking advantage of this!

Frio River with Mealy Blue Sage (click to biggify!)

It's nice to have water again in the river, too. We took our first swim and kayak trip last weekend. Ahhh....

Here are just a few of the many species of wildflowers blooming at our place right now. I've tried to include one of every color!

Blue Gilia

Pearl Milkweed Vine

Prickly Pear

Rosita

Illinois Bundleflower

Mexican Mallow

Prairie Verbena

Indian Blanket

Scarlet Penstemon

Here's a brief video taken in the short grass prairie through all the Englemann's Daisies. You can hear the White Wing Doves calling ('who cooks for you'), and Finley's baaahing at the end. I love it when there's mist on the mountain.

To see all the wildflowers at our place, take the Folia flowerweaver link and scroll down to 'gardens', then click on the Shortgrass Prairie, Wildflower Meadow, and Juniper and Oak Savanna garden listings to see all the wildflower photos.

For more flower/wildflower images from all over the world, visit Sunday Stills!

Sunday Stills: The Letter B

Well, I've haven't found much time for blogging lately--my time has not been my own. As one friend said, April was kind of Medical Month for us, on top of the big annual push to get the Spring gardens in. I've also continued to substitute teach almost daily for the school since Farmer Rick returned, on top of my own private guitar students and advertising clients. My life is the picture of busy.

Right now every inch of our property is covered in wildflowers. The Bluebonnets have been spectacular!

Next week I will be traveling 600 miles round trip to pick up my honey bees. My hive kit arrived today and my bee suit arrived last week. With temperatures already ranging into the 90's it will be more like my personal sauna!

I'll be painting the hive boxes this week and getting everything set up for my 10,000 new pets. Not that there wasn't enough to do around here already!

For more on the Letter B visit Sunday Stills!

Sunday Stills: In a Jam !

Farmer Rick has been recuperating nicely from his surgery, and the pathology report confirmed that the cancer was removed with a safe margin, so no other treatment will be necessary. This is a huge relief to us! Last week I was his substitute, teaching music and theater to 200 kids on top of my own private students and doing both our farm chores! I will continue doing this until he feels well enough to return, hopefully sometime next week.

For this week's Sunday Stills, Ed gave us a 'potluck' choice on the imagery for the challenge, and, of course, something presented itself first thing this morning. (And, it also makes up for my absence in last week's Hands challenge!)

I found this female hummingbird quite literally stuck in a jam--the grape jelly that goes on the new Oriole feeder for our orange feathered friends!

You can see all the breast feathers she left behind trying to wiggle out of the stuff. Poor thing, probably spent the night stuck in the jam. She was weakened and shivering when I found her, almost limp in my hand. After a rinse off and towel dry at the kitchen sink, I knew she needed some food right away. I have helped with several hummingbird banding projects locally, and my job has always been to feed and release them, so I'm a pro at this part! Fill 'er up!

The other hummingbirds didn't seem to mind. Maybe they even understood I was helping out.

Thank you for my new feeder, and removing whatever that was stuck in my grape jelly!

No problem, really.

The Hooded Oriole pair showed up about two days ago and I had their feeder waiting. The last two years I modified a regular hummingbird feeder to fit their beaks. This was taken right after extracting the little hummer.

For more potluck images visit Sunday Stills!

Saint Patrick's Day performance photos

These photos just in from our Irish music concert at the St. Patrick's Day dinner benefiting our local library.

This little guitar is a full-size electric classical minus the body. I tuned it to Open F (not a usual tuning) so Farmer Rick could sing Arthur McBride and still hit the high notes. If you google Paul Brady in the 1970's doing this song you will hear what we played. (Only he does it in Open G tuning).

Irish music is usually about lost love, or drinking. I like the slow, serious ones.

Farmer Rick likes the fast, silly ones.

But most of all, we love harmonizing and making music together for a good cause.

Macro Monday: Turtle

In the decade of living here, we have never before seen a turtle on the property. Living near the river it is not an unlikely inhabitant, but unexpected all the same. (Maybe it came over from our neighbor's pond, as all their ducks seem to have taken up residence in my front yard.) Cody--who made the discovery yesterday afternoon--was very wary of this unusual being. I'm not sure why the turtle was against the fence, but obviously that was not a good decision.

I will have to look it up for identification, as I'm not familiar with native turtle species. It could very well be someone's released exotic pet, too. The chickens were certainly keeping a wide berth!

Enlarged, I could see myself reflected in the turtle's very blue eye!

After a few photos, I relocated it farther away from the backyard, down in the creek. It would be nice to have a resident turtle.

For more macro images, visit Macro Monday!

Sunday Stills: A Day in the Life...

This week our host Ed has asked us to choose just four images from a typical day in our lives. Once every 3 weeks I must make the trek into the big city for everything we might need (and then some).

I am one of those people who has an SUV because I need it. Just to get out of my place I have to drive through the river which (at least in years not following a severe drought) usually flows across the low water crossing about 4 inches deep. I cross my river again (on a bridge), and then another river six times (the highway department is replacing those one car wide crossings with two lane bridges now). I can pack every inch, and my kayak racks allow me to tie larger stuff on top. I love my car.

Going to town often means more than a dozen stops, but Friday I only squeezed in eleven. Texaco (gasoline, coffee, giving directions to a visitor), cafe (veggie sandwich for lunch), thrift store (work shirts for both of us), birding store (oriole feeder), ranch store (chicken feed, scratch, hay, and bedding), garden center (potting soil, strawberry plants and petunias), book store (art magazines), beverage store (vodka, spicy bloody mary mix sans anchovies), pet store (dog food, cat toys), pharmacy, and grocery store. All the frozen and cold food is bagged in freezer bags to keep them from spoiling on the long drive home.

If I had only been more expedient, there might have been hardware or lumber tied on top and my toenails might have been sporting a spring color (to hide the gardening dirt). I took this at my last stop, as I would not be getting home until well after dark.

The road is long and winding through the hills, much of it directly into the Western sun. The radio is too fuzzy to listen to anything and there is no cell phone service. I might not pass another vehicle in over an hour. The windshield is splattered with unfortunate insects, and pocked by rocks.

The sun goes down and I'm still driving. At home we pop a frozen pizza in the oven and Farmer Rick helps me unload. I am exhausted, but at least I don't have to do it again for a while!

For more days of other lives, visit Sunday Stills!

Macro Monday: Paved with gold

When I returned home from my quilting adventure, the short grass prairie was awash in the yellow of Englemann's Bladderpod, Lesquerella engelmannii. After two drought-stricken years it was nice to see the wildflowers making a recovery. Intending to take a macro, I captured the sunrise first.
 

Each year one species outshines the others in sheer quantity. This seems to be the Year of the Bladderpod (so far). There are still about seventy species yet to come! Better hurry up and order my bees!

Even the mowed paths around the wildflower meadow and through the Juniper and Oak savanna seem to be paved with gold where this flower has taken up residence. That's part of the magic of this place.

For more up close shots visit Macro Monday!