80AcresOnline

It starts out simply, a few hours free to take a walk around and see how things are doing, though since we have not had significant rain for months, and less than half the average annual rainfall, how they’re doing is dry. Still, there’s always beauty, even muted by thirst. I head out across the near meadow, taking a look at a thicket of young cedar elms we decided to let grow for bird habitat…and spot a nest I hadn’t noticed before. Now the tall grass has laid over, and the leaves have fallen and a beautifully constructed nest shows up, perhaps 18 -24 inches above ground in a small cedar elm that’s got branches even lower than that. It’s about 4 inches across, a deep cup, built of twigs on the outside–tiny ones–and then grass, and lined with fine grass stems.

From there I go on to the main grassland, noticing the stunted size of the bluebonnet rosettes that should be twice that size by now to give us a good show in the spring. Without more rain, it’ll be a sparse flowering. Up a diagonal mowed path to the corner of the dry woods, and then down center walk (as we call it) to the creek woods. The entrance meadow is in its winter hiatus, except for greenbriar, and I remind myself that I need to mow this down in the next week or two.

Read the rest of this entry »