Painted Punting

This morning I saw the first Painted Bunting of the year! A very bright and colorful one indeed. I try to update this Journal/Blog when I see my first of the season. Of course they may be here a day or two before I see one, but at least I get a good idea of when to start looking. The puppy barking didn't seem to bother the bird at all. The puppy is starting to discover birds and squirrels.

There have been very big thunderstorms in the area but most are missing us to the north. Still no rain, but it has been cloudy and cooler.

April 2011

Windy, windy, windy! It has been windy for a month. We are used to high winds for a few days at a time, but it has been very windy for a good while. The temperatures have been getting much warmer and we actually hit the swimming pool on a few days. Once the water gets close to 80° it is time to get in the water on a warm day. We had a big storm blow through last Sunday/Monday. Talk about wind. We had several trees blow over and lots of big cedar branches break from old established cedar trees. DW had just finished painting all the wooden chairs a new spring green color and they were all blown off the patio into the road or pool. Tables, umbrellas, and big planters blown away. We were without power for nine hours, but we were lucky as some neighbors were without power for 26 hours. We did lose all water too for about a day. The only good thing from the storm was that we got 2" of rain. I've been very busy in the office and didn't get to clear and clean storm debris until this weekend. I first graded the road and had plenty of big cedar to use as a rake to work the road. The goats had a lot of extra to eat in their pasture as there were a lot of trees down there too. The live oaks were not finished with their new growth especially at the tops of the big trees, but this was all blown out so will see how they will look in a few weeks. I hope they are not bare on the tops.

Maisie is growing having gained two pounds. She's a bit of a monster right now, but that is typical for this breed. She is now 3 months old and loves to sneak outside. We have to watch her as it could be dangerous out there.

The Prairie Verbena is up and looks good, Not many bluebonnets so far. I was a little late getting the Hummingbird feeders out, but two flew in the house to remind me to get them up.