Any day now

Lucifer Hummingbirds are due and I'm heading to CMO in the morning to watch for them. Meanwhile, I put my sign back up in the alley after the city did a severe pruning. They cut the top off a mesquite, ostensibly because it's under the utility line. It is, but there's never been a Western Honey Mesquite in all of Alpine tall enough to reach the line. They left the stump about 5' tall; I've no idea why. Before their savage pruning I had been hanging a sign for birders from a limb on the tree.

August 21, 2018

February 27, 2019

So today I bolted my sign to the stump. Doesn't quite qualify as making lemonade out of lemons.😐 Coincidentally, the inspectors for the pruning came by today while I was installing my sign. I let them know how I felt about the whole situation.

From now on, for the first time, the house at CMO won't have a well. The well service just wanted too much to make it happen. For starters, $5000 to case it, plus a couple thousand for the work they already did. I told them the poor seep well wasn't worth it, so they came and removed the wiring they put in (unauthorized) and that's it. On the bright side, I won't ever have well expenses again, and won't have to worry about the long line to the house freezing again. I'll just use rainwater in the house and get my drinking water from our well here in town.

Eventually, I'm hoping to get a good quality composting toilet. That'll help.

To put this year into perspective, last year by the end of February I had tallied only four species of butterflies at the oasis. This year I'm up to 18 already. Gonna get exciting!

As you probably know, I'm big into ancestry. A cousin in Iowa mailed me some photos from my late aunt's estate. I enjoyed adding a few of them to my tree. A couple that I had memories about, but hadn't seen in ages were among the trove. Not to bore you, but here are the two I had thought were gone forever. The first one is of my dad and us 3 oldest kids, taken when I was about five (circa 1945). I remember it because I was holding a little jar with my prized agate collection. Throughout my childhood I wandered the countryside looking for agates. I still have my collection. It won't fit into that little jar either.  A couple in it are probably quite valuable since agate is now considered a semi-precious gem. Mine are Lake Superior agate, but I didn't know that then.

This last one I remember because my grandfather used to go on annual fishing trips to Mexico and bring us back souvenirs. Even at my age of 4 or 5, I anticipated a Piñata or Mexican doll or something with Mexican flavor. Was so disappointed when he brought my sister and me matching American-style dresses. Never wore them except for this one photo for him.

me, mom, sister (Andrea)

I'll close today's post with couple of recent photos of Big Bend Bluebonnets (Lupinus havardii) taken along the scenic river road and in Big Bend National Park by my favorite local photographer, Tim McKenna.