Exciting spring!

Heading south in the morning. Today is the last day of winter!

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow

Welcome to West Texas!

Mule Ears Peak, Big Bend National Park by Tim McKenna yesterday

Sprinkler on Alpine peach tree trying to save fruit today

Tomorrow - Not much of an exaggeration I'll bet

Winter's back!

Winter is doing its last gasp. We already lost our apricot crop and are now trying to save the peaches.

Here's an interesting oldie. Pecos River bridge in 1922.

Bluebonnets don't get better than this. The hills in Black Gap are covered with them, some 4' tall.

Big Bend National Park by Tanner Quigg

Feels like summer

Big Bend National Park on March 1st by Tim McKenna

At the oasis today I enjoyed seeing the blooming Desert Evening Primrose (Oenothera primiveris). Funny though that it only blooms in the morning.

The White-crowned Sparrow was still hanging today. I thought the shrike would have retrieved it by now. You know me, I hate to see anything go to waste.

The short month

I had hoped to get 20 butterfly species for the year by Mar 1st but missed it by two. If February had been a day longer I would have made it. I'm sure there are many species I don't get to count because I don't see them or get a decent look. Today the best butterfly was this Great Purple Hairstreak. I think it's only the second one I've seen at the oasis. Its larva feed on mistletoe and we've had a lot of that this winter.

It landed high in a pinyon tree so I had to take what I could get.

Trying to keep flower IDs from overwhelming me. I'm still hanging in there. Here's a lovely globemallow blooming. I just have the orange and lavender ones at the oasis.

Copper Globemallow - Sphaeralcea angustifolia

White-crowned Sparrows overwinter at the oasis, but this is the first time I've seen one that had been impaled by a Loggerhead Shrike. I can't imagine how the shrike got the bird skewered onto that flimsy twig.

All 18 of my Tree Tobacco plants are thriving. It's going to be awesome this August when they're blooming and swarming with hummers! An old lady can dream, can't she?

In all their splendor

Lucifers are back. It's wonderful. All gorgeous and hyper.

This  Kunth's Evening Primrose (Oenotherea kunthiana) bloomed at the oasis this morning.

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.

Beauty abounds

Surrounded by stunning bouquets everywhere. Most are in the early blooming mustard family.

Lyreleaf Jewelflower - Streptanthus carinatus

First Common Streaky-Skipper for the year. 

Not a whole lot going on but at least the weather is lovely. Vertigo again today.

Dry flowery day

Fendler's Bladderpod

Had hoped to get the estimate from the well service as promised. Didn't happen. Had hoped to see a hummer. Didn't happen. Even though I couldn't be indoors by the phone and out by the feeders at the same time, I'm confident I didn't miss anything.

Did see a first of the season Henry's Elfin butterfly. I really like them for some unknown reason.

This is the first time ever that I've had a Black-tailed Gnatcatcher sit still for me. Couldn't pass up the photo-op.

Late winter doldrums

It's hard to keep my spirits up when my body and the oasis are in such decline. On top of that the wind raged for days and I was feeling puny, still recovering from a bout of vertigo.

But I try to see my cup half full. I'm grateful to be alive. What I call the "infrastructure of the ranch" (CMO) goes downhill more and more. A couple of months ago the well stopped working. I asked the well service to come by when they're working in the area so I could save on a full trip fee. Well, they came twice and I didn't get the message they were coming. My plan was to find out how much it would cost to fix it and decide if it was worth it, or if I should just use rain water for the house. (I'm really frugal with water.) But by the time I found out they had been here, they had already fixed the pump and put new wiring in the well and said it wouldn't last long without being cased all the way down, like 380 feet. I would have said forget it, but they'd already done a couple thousand dollars of work. (They're very expensive.) My late husband spent $30,000 with them just to end up with this puny seep well. Probably makes 20 gallons a day, when it's working. Now that I have to pay that much money anyway, I'm waiting on an estimate of how much it'll cost to case it. We're looking at four grand here. My husband will pay part of it, but I was saving to get the big hill concreted and now that'll have to be put on hold.... not that I've been successful in getting anyone down here to see what they could do with the hill.

And other things keep deteriorating too. The stucco tank pump still doesn't work right. And my body!!! All my joints hurt and I get short of breath just moving the water hose. OK, enough whining.

Recently an Aoudad expert made two trips up our mountain to assess the Aoudad situation. He assured me there were none there. I was ever so hopeful that the Aoudad herd had moved to greener pastures (they say they're very nomadic) and my vegetation might recover. But today I scanned the top of the mountain and saw two Aoudad gorging themselves. Bummer! Very difficult shot with my little Lumix, but you get the idea.

I'm hoping it's just those two and not the whole herd, but not optimistic on that.

I saw a hummingbird when I got here this morning and got excited thinking it might be a Lucifer, but it was a selasphorus. I'd guess it was the selasphorus I had a week ago, the one with the white gorget, but it hawked insects above the water and hardly perched, so I didn't get a photo. Didn't see it again this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow.

It's really heartening to know that I have my new tank full of water. Without that tank I'd have 65,000 less gallons than I have now because that water would have been in the stucco tank and be gone by now. 

The wind blew off some of the wind shields from around the Tree Tobaccos while I was languishing in town. One of the newly planted ones didn't survive. I replaced it with one of the spares. The others I think will recover. Soon the protection won't be needed. Once it warms up and they get more established. One of those I planted earliest lost its shield and did fine.

I saw this raptor today. I thought it was a Harrier but Kelly says it's a Cooper's Hawk. I'm not good on raptors.

I don't have one big verbena patch this year, more like lots of little ones everywhere. Some are starting to bloom, but still too cold for good butterfly activity.

On Feb. 14th a birder visited and got a couple of photos of that not-quite-mature Rufous/Allen's Hummingbird. (Not the same one I saw today). He said I could share his photo here so it's my pleasure to do so. Thank you, Pat Dwyer!

UPDATE: I told my sister about seeing the Aoudad on the mountain and she said she sees them all the time on her game camera on the mountain. So much for the expert!