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Happy 4th of July!!

Jul 4th, 2009
by WK.
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July 4th Fireworks

July 4th Fireworks

Summer is here with a vengeance, it’s been over 100 degrees almost every day for the last several weeks, and there’s no end in sight.  Mowing the ranch yard has gone from a pleasure to a chore because of the heat — early mornings the grass is covered with heavy dew, and by the time it evaporates, the heat has begun. 

And dry, it’s so dry in Texas in the summer, especially in July and August.  It’s against the law in most cities to set off fireworks because of the fire hazard caused by our dry summers, so for the 4th of July people go to friend’s homes in the country to set off their fireworks.  It’s fun, and the little kid in all of us loves it, but as a property owner it’s scary, it’s so easy for a drifting spark or runaway bottle rocket to set a roof or field on fire. 

So tonight I’ll enjoy my barbecue with friends, and I’ll enjoy the neighborhood fireworks, and I’ll have my long hose hooked up, ready for sparks.  And I’ll be thankful — for our country and our freedoms, for friends and family, for good hoses, and for the metal roof I had put on the ranch house a couple of years ago!!  Happy 4th of July to all, and God Bless you, your family, and America!!

Posted in: At the Ranch.
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My First Old Car

Jun 2nd, 2009
by WK.
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My first old car was a 1941 Willis Jeep, Army version.  We owned several hundred acres in East Texas, about an hour’s drive from Dallas, and Leo, my Pop, owned a plumbing business in town at the time.  He worked hard at his business and then loved to play cowboy at our country place on weekends, it was his way to get away from the stresses of a business in the city.  I was 12 or 13 then and learned to love our weekends and summers there.  I first learned to drive on old cattle tracks and dirt roads on and near our place. 

 

My first motorized vehicle was a Red Comet motor scooter Pop bought for me to get around the place on when I got tired of riding my horse.  It was so low to the ground the engine soon got clogged with the red, iron-rich dirt and dust from those old country roads.  We would clean out the dust and grime, oil it up again and off I’d go.  As our cleaning and maintenance sessions came closer and closer together, Pop realized the scooter was not designed for the kind of abuse I could inflict on a vehicle. 

 

This was in the early fifties, a short time after the war, and there was a glut of surplus items of all kinds, so Pop soon located what he thought was the perfect vehicle for a son with a bit of a wild side – a surplus Army jeep with 4-wheel drive.  My friends, Jerry Don and Domard, and I would pile in that old Jeep and spend some of the best days our lives whizzing up and down the East Texas countryside.

 

A man who worked for Pop on our place part time, doctoring cows and cutting cord wood, spotted a hornet’s nest in a clump of mesquite trees in the middle of one of the pastures one day.  It was a huge nest and he was concerned they would swarm and attack some of our newborn calves.  After hearing him and Pop talk about it, my friends and I decided we could take care of the problem for them and have a little fun at the same time. 

 

We went off down to the barn and found several old mops with broken handles.  Back then we kept a 55-gallon barrel of kerosene for lamps and cook stoves, and also used it for other things around the place, like cleaning up broken motor scooters.  Anyway, we got some kerosene in a bucket and soaked those mops good with it.  Off we went in the jeep (open cockpit and all).  The plan was to drive straight through the mesquite trees (mostly big bushes) and swat the hornet’s nest with those kerosene soaked mops, knocking it down and killing the hornets with the kerosene. 

 

Well, best laid plans don’t always work out just as you picture them.  Many years before, our land had been farm land, and a farmer had plowed his deep furrows for planting just on the other side of those mesquite trees.  Of course, we didn’t know they were there when we went flying through the trees, whacking and swatting at that hornet’s nest. 

 

Everything was going just as planned, we had successfully knocked down the nest, and then we exited the other side and hit those furrows running across the field.  First thing I knew, that jeep became a wild bucking horse, and it bucked all of us out and continued by itself across the field.  All those hornets we had just evicted were mad as blazes and looking for vengeance and we boys were running all directions, swatting and yelling and trying to get away from them. 

 

It took a while to get over those stings, but I’ll never forget that day with my friends and that Jeep, my very first car.

Posted in: At the Ranch.
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The Great Chickadee Rescue

Apr 11th, 2009
by WK.
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baby-chickadees-ready-to-flys    Last spring I noticed some unusual activity on the porch at the ranch.  I had mounted an old rusty iron hook to hold a round or two of roping rope next to the door. Then I decorated it by attaching an old stirrup to the bottom.  The whole thing, rope and all, was more decorative than functional.

In April I think it was, every time I would step out the door, I would catch the blur of movement and sound of wings flapping to my left.  On closer examination I saw that a bird had been busy setting up residence in the old stirrup.  It obviously was not a finished product at that point.  There were the usual strings and threads and collected weeds all wound together to form a nest, and there was also the beginnings of a roof being carefully shaped by using the inside of the foot hole in the wooden form on the old saddle stirrup.  After that, I tried to give a warning noise of some kind to announce my impending departure from the ranch house door.  I wanted to keep from startling the poor young mother and give her time to escape before I opened the door.  I wasn’t able to see what kind of bird it was because it always made a hasty retreat before I stepped out.  Once I saw that the nest was completed with roof and all, I began to use the other ranch house door out of respect for a mother in waiting. 

Delinquent feline is probably too harsh a term to use describing Mr. Black, but at the time it seemed appropriate.  Yes, you guessed it, I wasn’t the only one who took note of the unusual movement next to the ranch house door.  I won’t dwell on the details of the encounter, and neither should you, it wasn’t pretty.  It should suffice to say that that mother bird was swiftly dispatched to the great atrium in the sky, you know, that’s near the rainbow bridge where your departed pets wait for you.  Although I do understand it was only instinctive behavior on Mr. Black’s part, I just didn’t feel right giving those coveted scratches and head bumps he loves for several weeks afterwards.

When I looked into the nest a day or two later there were three small speckled eggs.  It took another day and some consultation with a friend before I decided what to do about it.  I think I’ve mentioned before that I’ve installed Bluebird houses all around the ranch and I had one out back of the ranch house.  The houses have a latch and a door so they can be cleaned out on occasion.  I had checked and found a nest in the bottom of that one, but no eggs yet.  I put on rubber gloves (to avoid getting my scent on the eggs) and moved them to the Bluebird nest.  I hoped the bird that had nested there would adopt the eggs as her own and hatch them.  To make a long story short, it did, and they hatched.  They turned out to be beautiful Black Capped Chickadees.  To borrow the phrase from a loved but departed radio friend, and now, the rest of the story 

There was one life lost that summer, but three saved, and now when I see a little Black Capped Chickadee on the bird feeder just off the porch, I wonder if it is one of those three baby birds that were spared and lovingly hatched by another mother that year.  It’s a wonderful world we live in, full of surprises, isn’t it?

Posted in: Critters and Wildlife.
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Spring Is Coming

Mar 25th, 2009
by WK.
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 We had a big light show in the sky last night up towards the Red River, but it was too far away to hear the rumbling thunder that usually goes with it.  I was sitting on the porch enjoying the night sounds when I looked off to the north and I could see the huge billowing clouds as they were backlit by one lightening strike after another.  It was a little like watching an old silent movie, all that power and majesty lighting up an otherwise black sky, flickering and flickering as the lightening danced around behind the clouds. I must have watched an hour or so, until I started to nod off and decided to go to bed.

Around three this morning  I heard the wind pick up outside and got up to let Daisy, my neighbor’s dog in.  She was waiting at the door, tail a-wagging.  As I stepped out into the morning air I could hear a gentle rain had started and was playing it’s soft song cross the metal roof.  I could smell the ozone blown in on the wind from those spectacular lightening displays up north last night.  The big thunderstorms up north, the cool cleansing rain, are all signs that spring is not far off.  It won’t arrive too soon for me, it’s been a dark winter this year for many and I think brighter days are ahead for all of us as spring arrives.  I can see the Indian paint of wildflowers waving in the wind on the meadow out from the porch already in my mind. Can’t wait.

Posted in: At the Ranch.
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Strange Behavior of Woody

Mar 14th, 2009
by WK.
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Ha-Ha-Ha-HA-Ha, I could often hear him off in the woods near the ranch house.  Now and then I would spot a bit of red moving up and down the side of a dead tree that was still standing.  In the spring and summer I could only hear him — Ha-Ha-Ha- HA-Ha – because the green foliage kept him well hidden. 

 

This winter is different somehow, it was along toward the end of January I noticed when I would go to the door leading to the porch several large birds would take flight from the yard in front.  I’m used to the Bluebirds, the Cardinals and the Black-Capped Chickadees, but these were larger.  No, they weren’t the occasional Dove or Quail that visit the yard, they were even larger than that.  It happened several more times and I finally got a longer glance at them flying away and saw a prominent white spot in the middle of their backs as they flew off. 

 

It was not until later one day that I drove up the long shaded drive to the ranch house, and I knew what they were.  As I slowly drove in, the gravel crunching under my tires, I saw them before they heard me.  Five Red-Headed Woodpeckers were waltzing around the yard pecking the ground.  It was like some strange ritual dance — 1, 2, peck, peck … circle, circle, 1, 2, peck, peck … then again.  Those five red heads bobbing up and down in the grass were quite a sight.  I’ve never seen a Woodpecker do that, I take that back, I’ve never seen five woodpeckers together, much less doing anything like that.

 

They came and went over the next week and slowly their numbers dwindled until there was only one solitary Woodpecker circling the yard pecking away.  Well, that’s the story and I still don’t know what they were pecking at.  I just assume the lawn in front of the ranch house has some insect delicacies those Woodpeckers could not resist.  If you know what was going on, please tell me, I’d sure love to know what they were up to.

 

Posted in: Critters and Wildlife.
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Blue Popcorn Explosion!

Mar 9th, 2009
by WK.
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I love living in the country and will probably never move back to the city.  There are things you can see here that you never will in the city, like what happened one morning this fall while I was on the porch drinking coffee.   I witnessed an explosion of Blue Popcorn!  

Several years ago I read some articles about attracting more songbirds to the area around the house.  There have always been a lot of Cardinals pecking around, in the winter you can see little red dots all through the brown and gray woods.  That got started with me collecting the pumpkins from a close friend and my neighbor’s post-fall and Halloween decorations, splitting them open and scattering them around the yard.  As the seeds dried, the Cardinals convened in mass and had a major convention on the fading green of the yard and in the meadow beyond.  I also found some great recipes for attracting all types of wild birds on the internet like the Wild Bird Seed Recipes you’ll find here.

Well, anyway I read an article about creating a Bluebird trail (not those pesky Blue Jays who like to dive bomb you and your pet in spring when you set out to cross the yard, these are a very different bird).  Bluebirds are especially pretty, with wings of a pastel powder blue contrasting with a chest full of rusty reds like a Robin’s breast.  I set out on my new project by cutting a number of cedar posts from the old hardwood forest on the west end of my place.  Then I bid on and won some Bluebird houses on eBay.  (You can also find good ones at Home Depot and Wal-Mart.)  After they arrived on our trusty Big Brown delivery van, I put up 5 houses at the prescribed height and distance from each other - okay, I did crowd them a little - well, I wanted to be able to see them, didn’t I?!

Since then I’ve been watching Mom and Pop Bluebirds setting up residence each spring and summer.  And best of all, this particular morning all the little ones sprung from two of the little cedar houses in an Explosion of Blue!  Now you might think that’s the end of the story, but you’d be wrong.

Mr. Black enters the story here – yes, Mr. Black, the same feral ebony cat I took in, in the freezing cold of winter year before last.  The same Mr. Black  I have fed and raised as if one of my own, also witnessed the sea of Blue fluttering down from the nest, bobbing up and down, up and down, desperately trying to gain altitude on their first flight, bouncing across the brown grass lawn like Blue popcorn.  I could just see him from the corner of my eye — startled by his motion, Blackie and I simultaneously leaped from the porch.  I was in my winter long-john underwear and knocked over the table getting up and over went my fresh brewed cup of Sam Choy’s volcano roast Kona, scratch that, “ROYAL KONA from the Big Island” coffee.  There I was, racing around the yard trying to prevent Mr. Black from having a Bluebird muffin feast right before my eyes.  I was able to grab Blackie and place him inside the ranch house screen door so he could watch but not participate in the lawn activities.  

Momma and Poppa and  all the little ones finally achieved their goal of flight that morning, I’m happy to say, and even though Mr. Black wasn’t happy, he did get to witness a once in a lifetime event.   I guess you won’t be seeing a commotion like that  at the crack of dawn in the city, will you!

Posted in: Critters and Wildlife.
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