Hail, Wind and Rain

We were hit late last night by a major storm with very high straight line winds and marble sized hail that partly defoliated many of our trees and left leaves and small to some large limbs along the road and patio. Over an inch of rain fell during the 15-20 minutes of the storm all of it almost horizontal as the walls of the ranch house are still coated with wet leaves. The hail hitting against the metal ranch roof and large plate glass windows was so loud it actually hurt my ears for a minute or so during the peak of the storm.

The freshly filled seed feeders were almost blown off their hangers and are now mush. I will need to walk the ranch today to see if there was any significant damage to the large Oaks. Will pull out the gasoline powered blower to clear the drive, patio and gravel walk ways. The Cow Pen Daisey's were blown flat and may have to be pulled up as they were already top heavy.

Cold air is due later today with a high around 90 before final frontal passage and then we can expect lows in the high 30's to low 40's by Wednesday...

This is life on the ranch....Always a new challenge....

Home from Peru

Sherry and I returned this past weekend from a birding and nature tour of Peru. We are still compiling our list of both lifers and total bird species seen. Part of the tour was spent at Machu Picchu - we had seven participants and one leader. Sherry and I were the only participants from USA.

While gone our rain gauge measured 1.7 inches and the KR Bluestem has again taken over much of the landscape. I will be out a lot over the next couple of weeks spraying the pest with Round-Up and mowing some of my trails and census lines where I walk as the local name for KR Bluestem is "Tickle Leg" which is does.

The hummingbird feeders were mostly empty as were the seed feeders. I expect the Ruby-throats have pretty much left the Hill County. It will take a while for the birds to re-locate the seed feeders and I will put out 2 hummer feeders.