Oasis lovely but not birdy

The overcast windy weather finally went away and the oasis looks moist and lovely.

Very few birds though.

Hummers swarming in Alpine

I never had this many hummers here at one time before. Cannot keep the feeders full. I believe these are all migrating Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

I have 12 feeders out and wish I'd brought some more feeders to town from the oasis because I don't have many hummers there. I hear they're swarming like locusts in the Davis Mountains too. I hope the oasis swarms with them next. I'm ready.

Damsels in distress?

It was so windy today I finished the watering I needed to do and headed for cover. Even the damselflies seemed to be clinging for dear life.

All systems up and running

I was a happy camper watering my trees today. My favorite thing to do. My interest in birds, butterflies, odonates, and other life forms comes and goes depending on what's in abundance at the time, but my trees (ie. oasis) is always my top priority. The above photo is not what I would have liked but I took it myself and after several attempts that cut my head off, I settled on this one. Only just now it occurred to me I could have put the camera on a tripod. Duh! 

The new pressure switch works great and has more pressure than the old one, which will be better as long as no leaks appear in the lines.

Husband on a two-week fishing trip to Colorado so I can just indulge myself to my heart's content. Hopefully, it'll rain tomorrow. There's a good chance of it.

A better day today

My son came down from Alpine and checked everything and concluded that a "phase" of my electricity was out, so I called the electric company. Therefore, I went to Alpine without it getting fixed because I didn't know when they would make it out and I couldn't do any watering. Tomorrow we have to leave at 6 AM for Odessa. (I'm getting some teeth pulled and implants put in. The worst part is that I'll have to eat mush for 4 months. Seems excessively long to me.)

Anyway, I was most anxious about the electricity. I MUST water my trees Wed or Thurs. At 5 PM I couldn't stand not knowing any longer so I called Rio Grande Electric. They had gone out there and apparently found a bad wire and fixed it and I'm good to go. Now I just hope my newly installed pump switch works. I think it will, but it should be fixable, if not. And I think the old one would have worked fine too.

There are lots of juvenile birds everywhere. I love the newborn quail best but they're gone too fast to photograph. This young Northern Mockingbird hung around just fine, though. (Photo taken at CMO)

I want to photograph butterflies on these flowers in Alpine, but when I go outside my hay fever goes bonkers.

There are weeds in Alpine that I call Ragweed (I'm a yankee) and my husband calls Careless Weed, but whatever it is, I'm allergic to it. At the oasis I'm allergic to Golden Crownbeard but don't have a problem when I keep it all pulled from there.

A challenging day

It's so glib to lecture my kids as to how they should consider their problems as challenges, but almost impossible to do it myself. I just get so overwhelmed with "challenges."

Since I have to have major dental surgery Tuesday, I got my chores done in Alpine yesterday and came down to the oasis early today to get things caught up here. The first thing I noticed was that the drip I left dripping under the cottonwood tree was not dripping. Sometimes the pressure switch gets stuck and I have to fiddle with it to get it going. Well, I fiddled ad nauseam, then decided it was time to install the new switch I'd purchase some time back. So after all morning and my son in Alpine advising me along the way I  completed my first pump switch installation and still the pump didn't come on. Son walked me through testing with an amp meter thing and somewhere along the line I discovered the breakers at the pole weren't hot, although they had been hot earlier. (I did not touch 2 hot wires together) Anyway, to make a long story shorter, I finally gave up and my son is reluctantly coming down in the morning to, hopefully, fix it.

On the bright side I didn't get electrocuted or snake-bit although I had close encounters with both today.

Took a few photos late this afternoon in an attempt to de-stress. Here's my lovely tank full of water. Trying to enjoy seeing it because I never know how many months, or years, before I'll see it full again.

Finally got one of the turtles with it's neck stuck out.

 And the first roadrunner I've seen here since early last year.Of all the species that abandoned the oasis last year, it was the last one to return.

Lots of frogs around the ponds. I think they're Leopard Frogs.

Lovely surprise

I rode down to the oasis this AM with my husband to drop off some benches he had restored for me. Plan was to stay about an hour. As we were unloading the benches I noticed the big concrete tank was brimful. I actually screamed! Somewhere upstream it had rained last night and run enough to top off that tank. It didn't make it to the other tanks, but the settling pond was full and needed to be pumped so as not to lose that water. My new rain gauge registered slightly over one-tenth of an inch; not enough to run here. So I sent Hugh back to town without me. My sister will give me a ride in the morning. Tank is on left side of spillway; settling pond on right side.

It took me 8 hours to pump out the water.

Destination is the tank that was down about 4 feet because I've been using it for watering all summer. This means that I'll have at least another month's supply next spring. May be the difference between having to haul water an extra month or not having to haul water at all, depending on when it rains next summer.

Alpine red stuff

I'm still struggling to learn the dragonflies and damselflies. I bought 2 new books about them besides the one I already had. The new books are very helpful. Our ponds here were quite active this afternoon and I took many photos. Still working on IDing them but here is my favorite. It's a Desert Firetail (damselfly).

For the last three years or so I've been trying to grow Tran-Pecos Morning Glory. Finally, this year we have a nice vine of the lovely red tubulars flowers. Eventually, I hope to get it growing at the oasis. I tried last year but with the record heat and record drought it only made a couple of blooms, then died. I also might try the Coral Vine again.

A full day

Whew! I can hardly catch my breath. We started early this morning banding near Terlingua where Kelly Bryan (the master bander) spotted a lovely snake, a Texas Longnose Snake. That's a new snake species for me. Kelly tried to keep it from disappearing long enough for me to snap a photo of it.

After banding we went in search of odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) at Lajitas. It was scorching hot and we OD'd on dragonflies. I took 230 photos and I'm sure Kelly took more. I haven't had a chance to ID all my photos yet but here's one of my favorites, a Widow Skimmer.

On the way back to the oasis around 5-6 PM, we came upon the Terlingua Ranch Road totally flooded. For miles we drove through scary water rushing over the road. Low cars were waiting for the water to subside but our pickups made it ever so slowly through. Got a couple of miles from the oasis and bone dry. Not a drop. How disappointing! It would have topped off my tanks and given everything a good soaking.

I'll try to post more odonate photos when I get rested up and get them ID'd.

Oasis turtles

Turtles just seem to show up at the oasis whenever there's water. I guess they're just plain old mud turtles.

This turtle likes to sit atop a dead yucca that the June rain washed into the pond.

Now he can survey his shrinking kingdom. Hope we get another big rain soon so the pond won't dry up quite as fast.