Jun 19

May 5, 2016, Between Rain Events

Posted: under Activities, photography, Plantlife, Water, Weather.
 June 19th, 2016

Most but not all the surface water has dried up, soils that were seeping and running with water last week are dry enough to walk on in regular shoes.

Gaillardia-Qanne"s-lace-05-05-2016
Main grass: Queen Anne’s Lace, gaillardia, scattered bluebonnets
stiff-stem prairie flax, coreopsis, goldthread, Venus’s looking glass,
skullcap, green antelope horns, others


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Jun 19

Earth Day 2016

Posted: under Activities, Land, photography, Water, Weather, Wildlife.
 June 19th, 2016

Lg-main-grass-4-22-2016

Earth Day 2016

It had rained in the day before, and dawned cool, with a northeast breeze–a perfect day to go checking the water quality on the east half of the place.  Not as much rain as the previous weekend, so with some difficulty I was able to make it from place to place in ordinary walking shoes.  In the distance, the line of woods along the seasonal creek; to the left the “dry woods” growing on a hump of rock.  Out of sight to the left, the line of trees along an old ditch dug by a former farmer, intended to carry runoff from the highway to the south property line .   A beautiful day, with signs of recovery from the drought…and signs of much management still needed.

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Apr 13

April on the Land

Posted: under Activities, photography, Plantlife, Water, Weather, Wildlife.
Tags: , , , ,  April 13th, 2013

It was a dry fall, after a dry summer, and a dry winter followed the dry fall.  Other places got rain–sometimes nearby–but we had none for months.  March brought a little–April has brought a little–and now we have some flowers.

hist-adj_bluebonnets

The bluebonnets may be only 4-5 inches tall, instead of knee-high, but they’re there–in a few places–and should be able to make seed for another year.    We had more through most of the dry winter, but many finally just died–or were eaten, since they were the only green thing out there.

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Jun 09

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Posted: under Climate Change, Plantlife, Weather.
Tags: , , ,  June 9th, 2012

This is another year of brown spring and summer…though some people got more rain, we’re still behind, and the quick brown-off after the rain we did get proves it.

This is not how the land should look in early June: we should still have at least half the grass green, and the June flowers in full bloom.    This is a typical August picture: brown land, hard blue cloudless sky full of heat.   Before climate change really began to show here,  mid-June to mid-July looked more like the picture at the top of the blog.   But this is the third dry year, though we had enough rain in April and early May to produce thi river of gold (claspleaf coneflower) in mid-May, in the lowest part, where water had run for a few days.

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Feb 25

More Snow Pictures

Posted: under photography, Weather.
Tags: , , ,  February 25th, 2010

We get snow so seldom (and enough to take pictures of, even more seldom) that I feel several posts of snow pictures are justified.

This is on the trail north from Fox Pavilion to the north fenceline.

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Feb 24

Next Day Snow

Posted: under photography, Weather.
Tags: , ,  February 24th, 2010

Early morning, 22F, snow has crunchy crust…the little Eleocharis there in the wet area are ice-coated but they don’t mind.   What a difference a day makes.  I took different trails than yesterday and have over a hundred images–here are some of my favorites.

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Feb 23

Snow Day

Posted: under Weather.
Tags:  February 23rd, 2010

snow-2-horses080

On a snowy morning, the horses frolic like kids out of school.

Snow started about 6:45,  just as we entered town after driving through sleet/rain from Leander, where we’d dropped M- off at the bus terminus.   It’s snowed off and on all day.  Beautiful clean country snow, melting underneath from the warmth of the ground, but still…lovely.  Took a long walk this afternoon, up to Fox Pavilion in the dry woods, down the north fenceline to the creek, and into the creek woods, then home along the south fenceline.

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Jan 09

Cold Enough?

Posted: under photography, Plantlife, Weather, Wildlife.
Tags: , , ,  January 9th, 2010

The cold front that hit central Texas between midnight and dawn Thursday certainly did change things…yeah, we’d had that 15 degree down-spike back in December, and some other overnights in the 20s (good for knocking the ticks back) but this was a serious Arctic blast like we used to get every winter 30 years ago and haven’t had for the past decade.  Of course we wrapped pipes in advance, put on the hose bib foam-thingies, blocked the air vents under the house, all the usual things you do.

frozen-pipe-drip291

Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t….yup, that’s a pipe that burst–not where it’s sawed off, but at an elbow just underground. Read the rest of this entry »

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Dec 10

Changes

Posted: under Activities, Water, Weather.
Tags: , ,  December 10th, 2009

Every day brings changes to the land–the seasonal changes being among the most obvious–but from year to year we see changes–both desired and undesired–as a result of what we, our neighbors, and the weather do.

eastern-gama-flowers368 Read the rest of this entry »

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