Prickly Pear

Are a type of cactus that grows wild throughout Texas. Mostly at our place.  We have literally tons of it.  We had a flood on March 12th 2007 after 9 inches of rain in one day.  That flood broke up the cactus and spread it all over the acreage resulting in thousands of plants growing.  Needle-ss to say it can be a nuisance.  Two years later we have a problem and need to get rid of it.  Our plan is to dig them up one at a time with pitchforks (the organic method) and relocate them where we need fencing. Organic fences!  What will we think of next?  

Goats are clever animals.  You watch them and they peacefully mind their own business which is eating browse (plants, shrubs, trees and reluctantly grass and weeds) Contrary to the stereotype, goats are fussy eaters and will turn up their noses at anything that doesn't look tasty.  Only the most expensive hay will be eaten.  Only the tastiest plants.  The tastiest plants of all are the ones that they aren't supposed to be able to get to. Those plants are also the most expensive and require backbreaking labor to put in.  Specifically, landscaping and the vegetable gardens. The goats will risk their lives to get a few mouthfuls of the garden.  

Our craftiest goat is 12.  She will eat grass until she sees you turn your back, then WHAM!  She's through the fence and eating the tomato plants.  She gives no thought that tomatoes are nightshades and therefore will make her sick, she just knows that they are forbidden and so are the tastiest plants of all.  It is for goats like 12 that we are making our cactus fence. 

Collecting eggs can be hazardous.

Mike found this 4.5 foot-long rat snake on top of the nesting boxes in the chicken coop yesterday. He just picked it up, put it in a feed bag and came and got me and the camera. After taking pictures we released it into the creek area - and of course, it climbed the first tree it could to get away from us. Mike said it bit him and peed on him (the smell of snake piss, apparently, isn't very pleasant). Just part of life.

Mom and Pop Bewick flight train their litte ones.

The wonderful, loud, wary Bewicks wrens had flight training yesterday! The four or five kids were all on a big tree by our back deck, with Mom and Pop Bewick carefully teaching them that when you fall out of a tree, you just fly back up to it. They fed the little ones while training. What great coaches! The wrens were also being taught to check out the nooks and crannies for food, as well.

This is the first time that Mike and I have witnessed the nest-building, then the egg-sitting and the hatching all the way to the flight training. One egg remains in the nest, but I'm guessing it's not fertile. I will keep that one for the cabinet of curiosities - along with the bluebird's egg from a few years ago.

In other news, Recoil (our only balls-intact buck) got stuck in a tree again. Mike found him yesterday.

So I finish opening my mail and my back is hurting so I go lie down. Every
once in a while I hear a goat yelling. It's loud and I got up twice looking
through the barnyard to see who's lost her kids. It's an unusual voice so I
think it's 205. But she's there. I hear the yell again and several goats
get up and look out back. I put my boots on and went out to look around.
As I walk around the fence behind the back yard with the goats following me
thinking I'm taking them somewhere special, I see a weird and distressing
site. Recoil is on his back on the ground completely upside down with all
his legs up in the air. One leg is caught between two trees! He's in the far
back woods so I ran out to the new gate and got to him. I was able to pull
the two trees apart and his leg slipped out. I'm thinking it's broken
because he can't even touch the ground with it. There are no poops on the
ground but there's hair stuck in all the adjacent trees. So he'd been
twisting and turning to get out. He was breathing very rapidly in a lot of
pain. I slowly walked away calling him and he came towards me on 3 legs.
He must have that walk perfected by now. Brisket was helping by trying to
mount his rear. The other goats were going out towards the dog leg and he
hobbled towards them. I went and got a scoop of my pregnant goat mix for
him and by the time I got back he was with the girls who were all coming
back. So they got fed early today and I threw in some apple treats and beet
greens. Recoil got his share and while he's still limping, he's getting
along okay.

Angry young wren

There's nothing like an angry mob - except maybe an angry young wren -- a Bewick's wren that laid her eggs in a finely-built nest just outside the back door. Her little hatchlings are under her and BOY is she not happy about being photographed.

And Mike had the nerve to want to capture that Kodak moment.