Not enough time

This morning I was to meet with the phone company about the mess they left on the road. I told my husband after that, I'd bird a bit and when it got hot, I'd come back to town, around 2 PM. 

I spent more time with the road situation than planned, plus had to service and wash feeders. So when I finally sat down to enjoy birds, time flew. At 2 PM I called my husband and told him I was running late and would be back by 4 PM. That only left me 30 more minutes to watch birds. And wouldn't you know, it was very birdy. I snapped as many photos as I could before reluctantly heading back to town. Wish I had just planned to spend the day. Usually, birding slows down around noon, but with it being migration, triple digit heat, and a tree loaded with pistachio berries, it was crazy!  I enjoyed what time I could and took a few nice photos. Finally getting the hang of my new-again camera.

I'll go back Sunday and spend the day watering and leisurely birding. As leisurely as possible while rushing around moving hoses, of course. It'll still be sweltering weather, so the running water should bring in birds.

Warbling Vireo

Empidonax flycatcher

Townsend's Warbler

As for the road mess, I'm satisfied they'll do everything they can to make it right. We'll see...

Out of curiosity, I asked if anyone else complained about their roads. They must have buried cable throughout about a thousand miles of Terlingua Ranch roads. They said, "no," all the other roads had "windrows" along them before they did their project. Well, mine didn't. I hate those ugly rows of rocks and dirt a grader leaves, so I never tolerated them. If I was 20 years younger, I would just rake them away and pick up the rocks, but I'm no longer able to. Once it rains on that stuff it's not rake-able. And rain is forecast for later next week. (I imagine none of the other property owners on Terlingua Ranch get nearly daily emails saying how lovely their place is either.) Maybe I'm being too picky. I've made up my mind that after they do their re-manicuring, I'll just accept however it turns out. At least it's not on roads that birders traverse. Unless they get turned around and head out the wrong way. I hardly use that road anymore myself. I guess it's just knowing there's ugliness on my land. To be sure, there are a couple of ugly places* on my land that nothing can be done about it. I have to accept what I can't change.

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* In 1979, a couple of years after I bought my property, a pair of miners told me they had mineral rights on the mountain to the south of CMO (Williams Mountain), and brought in equipment across my land, then cut roads across the pristine face of the mountain. I protested and demanded a survey. Ultimately, they packed up in the night and left. The surveyor told me I now owned a fluorspar mine. So that ugly scar is there forever. I removed as much of their debris as possible and had my late husband dig a pit and bury some of it, including a bus they had their workers stay in. In hindsight, I should never have let them enter my land. I didn't know any better in those days. And back then it was really difficult being a woman in a man's world. For me, anyway.

Then when I was building a road to my property at the end of Snake Road, I had it flagged where I wanted it to go. While I was busy building my house and getting supplies etc., my dad decided he knew better where the road should go so he dug  part of a switchback across the top of the big hill. I stopped it as soon as I saw it, but that's another blight on the landscape. 

And the huge boulders we dynamited from the top of the hill so the road wouldn't be so steep are still an eyesore. Getting the concrete on the big hill took priority to getting those gone, but I still have hopes that an opportunity to fix that situation will happen. Originally, we removed the big boulders, but through the years more have eroded off the edge of the cut into the hill we made. Not giving up on that. Just so much work piling up all the time, that it gets moved to the far back burner. 

These rocks were removed in 2017, but more have fallen in their place.