Time to update my Blog - recap the last 8 months

Well sometimes there is more to do than the good lord has allocated us mere folks time on the earth to accomplish.

1. After the big storm, life settled down to the routine of the ranch. Putting seeds out for the birds, keeping the water sources clean and full, and repairing what the storm broke and the animals weekly re-arrangements.

2. I should have spent more time preparing for the winter we had one of our coldest - extended days of freezing - so that several of my trees planted this year were frozen back to the ground - mulch - mulch - mulch then water water water.

3. The year had started out with good rainfall, lots of wildflower - in fact the best we have ever had - and then the rain stopped or almost stopped.

4. It was late winter time that I started working on a plan to finish landscaping the front of the ranch house. My nephew, Bobby Barclay owns and runs a Landscaping Company that specializes in building rock features. In addition to building a large front rock wall flower bed I wanted to have water features. I designed the big picture and let Bobby and his crew do the rest. It has been one of my best investments on the ranch - especially the water features.

5. The water feature needs its own line. I decided I wanted some water falls, streams, pools and a pond. We started out with a large pond (about 10 feet in diameter and 3- 1 foot deep). It had to be excavated using a Bobcat with a jackhammer to bust the solid rock base 6 inches below my black dirt surface. A water fall was constructed next to the patio, the water falls out of and over some large rocks into two pools that drain out through the rock wall dropping about a foot to a stream that runs about 10 feet to the big pond. A second water fall was constructed under the trees that lightly falls over some large ranch rocks into a pool that drains into a small shallow stream that runs slowly through Hill County river rock into the big pond too. An amazing number of birds - 45 + have been photographed using the feature. Plus several mammal and herps (Frog, snake and lizard). Visit the link below to see the visitor to our water feature.

https://picasaweb.google.com/pipilofuscus/CollinsWaterFeatureVisitors?authkey=Gv1sRgCMyN6v-RrKC3lgE&feat=directlinkauthkey=Gv1sRgCMyN6v-RrKC3lgE&feat=directlink

6. The rock walled bed was filled with good top soil and I contracted over 100 native plants to be set in the beds. It has been mulched and watered once a week.

7. In April Sherry and I had the chance to help with Nature Quest in Uvalde County. I gave a program on Hill County Butterflies and we both took advantage of some of the field trips. This event is trying to regain its image as it lost lots of energy when funding was cut off. LeAnn And her husband Anthony Sharp did a very good job of re-starting the festival and hopefully it will rebound.

8. Recently I have had the opportunity to assist in the Love Creek Nature Conservancy Preserve breeding point counts. Love Creek is in Bandera County and has a wonderful diversity of bird species. The preserve was laid out in a grid with 120 points each at least 300 meters apart. Several TNC biologists and myself did each point counts - each point being visited 3 times during the spring (April-May-June). As I will not disclose what and the number of species seen until the TNC folks have made that data public, I will only comment that it is a very rugged place to work requiring GPS and a lot of care in navigating across the canyons and juniper thickets. My personal case involved a very bad fall that resulted in a large contusion on my left leg that is still swollen after 2 months.

9. On June 1st I gave my Hill County Butterfly Program to the Master Gardeners.

10. In early June Sherry and her sisters held a family reunion for all the family members of the 4 sisters families - Lawyer Clan.

11. Did I mention it was dry? Well to date this year I have recorded a little over 3inches of rain. 100 degree days are already occuring and we still have 5 days to the start of summer.