Some Rain

We got a lot of flower bed work done around the house this week. DW set more flowers and Pepino really prepared a wonderful bed in the large circle in between the Pavilion and new Patio. He dug out all the grass etc., dug out the rocks, and spread three loads of new top soil I had brought in with the tractor. It really looks good and is ready for new planting. We are planning on planting Asian Jasmine as a ground cover. It's a large area so we have ordered 40 small plants and 6 larger ones in order to cover it. Hopefully it will within two years. We also spread natural fertilizer on the front yard just in time for the weekend rains.

I did do some trimming and set fire to a brush pile in the mountain pasture. The weather seemed right for burning as it was looking to rain. The drizzle did start Friday evening and we had good rains on Saturday. Drizzle and light rain on Sunday. Probably 3 inches overall. A good result of the rain is that it seems to have knocked down the 'fuzzy' bits of the blooming Texas Live Oaks. We had just reached the stage that they turn everything green. The patio, tables, the tractor, the cars, everything. Hopefully most have been washed out of the trees, the ground and road is covered with the 'fuzzy' bits, but at least they won't be covering everything nearly as bad. Good.

I haven't seen a Hummingbird on the feeder, but one buzzed me on Saturday so they are arriving. The wildflowers are looking great.

April is nice! Patio is Ready!

The weather has been much better although we had two weeks of high winds. In one stretch of 36 hours the wind never dropped below 20 mph day or night, with gust up to 40 mph. It has helped getting the leaves off the trees though. Of late the weather is nice with day highs in the 70's and dropping to 50's at night. Good working weather although this is my busy time in the office.

We have cleaned all the flower beds set out all new flowers, mostly begonias. The deer did get the Mexican Heather in the pots out front, but everything in the beds are fine so far. This is the first time we have planted since the new rock borders were completed. The beds around the house look very good. We set three tomato plants and the Mint is coming along very well. I don't think we are going to get the big garden in this year.

The trees continue to look good. They are still in process of change. The Live Oaks are dropping old leaves as the new ones come out. Most of the Spanish Oak have budded and should be in leaves very soon. The lone Hackberry tree, usually the last to bud, has now done so. I have to double my inventory of Pecan trees. We have really cleaned the area where I knew I had the big pecan and now I know that there are two very large native pecan trees. When I looked before I just assumed there was one, but now that the brush and briars are cleaned I can see both at the same time. The wildflowers are coming now out. We have a lot of Prairie Verbena around the house as usual. Between the goats and the deer they have eaten most of the wildflowers on the ranch. There are a lot of Bluebonnets along the roads and highways.

The wild birds are not as active as last year yet. I think we are behind schedule this year. We had beautiful indigo buntings by mid-April last year. I did put out the first hummingbird feeder today. I haven't seen any hummers, but they are due anytime.

The deer have not been as active now that we have grass and they have lots of things to eat on the mountain and pastures. We still get the regulars that live here on the ranch, but I haven't seen the large groups of deer for a week or so. I did have a deer stand in the ranch road yesterday when I was going to feed the goats. He didn't move until I had to come to a stop in the Gator.

We have added pots to the new patio and the furniture has been painted so the patio is looking very good as well. I believe it is now officially open!! Still too cool to swim, but the water has been getting up to 70°. It's still cooling off at night so the water also stays cool. Won't be long though.

Spring is here!

tuekeyWe have have had some very nice days, but on the first day of spring the weather again turned cold and cloudy like the weather we had had all winter. It only lasted about 36 hours, but it did freeze the water in the fountain so it was cold. They had snow again in the DFW area and set an all time record for snow. It cleared and was nice today so hopefully the cold weather is now over.

The Texas Live Oaks are losing their leaves and budding. The Spanish Oaks are also budding. There seems to be a lot of buds and I'm looking forward to the new leaves. The native grasses are coming up and turning green and I saw the first wildflowers this week. Looks like a good spring and I bet we have a lot of wildflowers this year too. DW set flowers in the new flower bed next to the pool today and has painted the patio furniture in anticipation of a lot of use of the new patio and pool this year.

The birds have been very active. Lot's of birds at the feeders. We can also see the geese flying north. They are impressive to watch flying overhead. I saw this flock of turkey on the county road this week. A new FB friend drove down our road and was able to get this photo. Although I see quite a few turkey around here I've never been able to get a photo this good. The deer are also somewhat active, but with the new grass coming in not as many deer are coming by to feed on our winter rye grass.

I did cut two very large cedar trees in the back of the house this week. The Live Oaks are looking very good and as they get bigger we have to cull more cedar. Again, once they are gone you really don't miss them. I'm having to burn the stump on the larger one as it was huge. I'm using the fire ring and had it about burned out before that cold snap and rain put it out. Used to be common to have fires that close to the house, but not in several years.

Much Better Weather in March

We have had much better weather. We had a deluge type rain early in the month with several inches of rain in a short period of time. This type of rain really gullies the road and as wet as it has been most of the gravel and caliche was too wet to make immediate repair, but when it starts to dry you can get some material that sets up almost like concrete. You have to catch it just right though. We decided to make a major change in the view from the front of the house by cutting down the large cedar tree in the center of the circle in front of the house. It really opened up a wonderful view. You can now clearly see four different mountains from the front of the house. After cutting down a big tree we always wonder why we didn't do it sooner. The tree is being recycled as we are using the cedar logs to make a screen in front of the pool equipment and I was able to use the cedar top as a drag to sweep and repair the road. I bet we end up cutting down the other cedar tree in front as then we would have the two huge Texas Live Oaks as the only trees in front. It would also really open up the view of Gary Mountain directly across from us.

The new ranch entry is already finished. The fence crew came and began clearing the fence line and setting the posts. The welders showed the next day and we had a nice four rail pipe entry and gate in 2 ½ days. I really like it. The gate is also made from the same pipe so it looks great and custom made. The weather was very nice so of course we spent several days clearing and cleaning around the new entry. The entire entry area looks much better. It's simple and clean just as we wanted. I think we may extend the pipe fence down the fence line two more sections. If we do we'll have an old pile of debris from the 1970's to clean as it would be seen, but we'll save that project for the summer.

During the process of building the new gate I discovered a new talent or skill. The art of dowsing. The main water line for the area water co-op follows the county road just inside my fence row. It goes somewhere under the area we are placing the new posts for the new entry. We requested that the line be marked, but that was never really done until the end of the first day so we had to determine the location of the water pipe so that we wouldn't hit it and knock out the water for everyone in the area. One of the crew started using a diving rod to find the water line. That really fascinated me as I've always been interested in that since I saw it done as a little kid on the farm in Oklahoma. They were confident and continued the work. I was at the gate working late moving the cedar they had cut when the water man came by to flag the line. He also used a diving rod. I had him instruct me on how to do it and did some sample finds myself. That night I really researched the art of dowsing and tested it for a few days. It would have come in handy when we couldn't find the water line when we ran water to the new wildlife tank this fall. I'm pretty confident in my new ability and it's fun.

March 2010

The 1st day of March was again the same weather as we have had all winter: cloudy, wet & cold. The 2nd day was better with sunshine and warmer, but still below average. Hopefully we will have more typical weather for the rest of the winter. I will say that the wet weather has helped the trees and the rye grass looks great. The deer have enjoyed the rye grass and done a good job of keeping it trimmed. The hired hand has missed the past several weekends, but it was really a good time to go to Mexico as the weather here hasn't really been the best for outdoor work.

We have decided to improve the entry to Twisted Oak Ranch so we have been looking at various styles of gates and entries along our county road and other roads in the area. We don't want a fancy entry, no arches nor rock columns, just something clean and simple. I think we will go with a pipe entry and leave it natural. When we built the house we just pushed through the cedars creating a new entry from the ranch road to the county road. We just set a temporary cedar post entry with cattle panels and nice simple pasture gate. It has been fine and we rarely close it, but do have to wire it to a tree to keep it open. We are not going to install an automatic gate opener although that seems to be the hot thing out in the country. The cost is higher than the entry cost itself and since we only occasionally have animals in this section we will probably leave it open most of the time. In the process of looking at gates, we discovered that we have the smallest gate on Gary Creek Road at only 12 feet wide, but we have the original ranch entry that is wide enough for equipment to enter. The new gate will be 14 feet and the entry will consist of four rail pipes with three sections on each side of the gate. We will have to cut some cedar trees to get the additional room needed, but I think we will have a nice clean entry when it is finished. Hopefully we'll have this project finished by the end of the month.

Finally, the sun.

We finally had a nice day on Saturday. The sun was out all day for the first time in February. We did get some work done over the weekend. I found some dry caliche to spread and cover the pad area of the new pool construction where it meets the gravel road. When we get the new gravel it will just show stone on the back wall. While on the tractor doing that I did some work on the road and trails. We also set some large rocks as a transition between the gravel and new grass at the pool, cleaned flower beds, worked on the pool, moved a rock pile, and some other chores. It was just nice to get outside. The forecast is for more cold and wet weather so the nice weather will unfortunately not continue, but nice for a while.

Birds are very active as are the deer.

Heavy Snow

This continues to be the wettest and coldest winter in Texas in many years. We again had one nice day with 60°+ weather, but most days continue to be cloudy and cool. We actually had a very heavy snow in central Texas on Tuesday. We had 4-5 inches on the ground here at the ranch. It only lasted 36 hours, but that was a unique snow. Again it was nice watching the birds and deer in the snow. The birds are very active as I'm filling the feeders every other day. Of course I'm not getting any work done outside due to the weather. We really need to get a few pretty days so I can get some cedars removed for the new garden location.

Snow

The cold rainy weather continues. We had one good work day and took advantage cleaning the culverts at two of the gates on the county road from the debris accumulated from rain run off. I also built a water divertor where a trail meets the ranch road in front of the house. Water would run down the trail then wash out the road. Barely had it finished when the rains began again. The DFW area had really big record snow, over a foot. We are just far enough south that we only got 1-2 inches or so. The snow is pretty, but the ground is already so wet that it's messy. Pretty wildlife scenes watching the deer and birds in the snow though. The photo is looking down the mountain at the cabin, ranch road, and Gary Creek valley in distance. Notice how the snow weighs down the cedar trees. I haven't been out to see if we have lost any trees, but we did lose power overnight so trees have come down somewhere in our rural system.

Today is a unique day in U.S. history, the first day that there is snow on the ground in all 50 states.

Groundhog Day

I can't believe that it's already February. The weather still remains colder than usual. We have had a few nice days, but it's really been cool, cloudy, and rainy. We've had 5-7 inches of rain in the past few weeks. The trees look good and when we get sun again I bet we get grass right away. More rye grass has come up with this recent batch of rain. I will plant bermuda grass over it later.

We are getting big groups of deer. A group of 8-9 does and a group of young bucks come almost every night. Also a few single bucks and does at various times. The grass over the septic remains green and the corn I put out attracts them to the back of the house. They also seem to like the new rye grass too.

We lost a goat who had climbed a cedar tree and got hung up. Unfortunately it was the very cold nights we had and although we freed her she really couldn't survive. I had Pepino trim all the remaining brushy multi-trunk cedars in the goat pasture. If it's not predators or dogs, it's the weather or something unusual that gets your goats.

We have used a lot of propane due to the cold weather. I bought two electric heaters to supplement heating the house and liked the one that looked like a small fireplace so much that I ordered an electric insert for the fireplace. It looks like a real fire and I can use it to heat or just turn on the flames. I like it.

The pool is basically finished and we had the pool school so it is now our responsibility to maintain it. They still need to change the gauge on the filter, but that's about it. The pool equipment has run a lot this month as it has a freeze guard that runs the waterfall automatically when it gets close to 32 degrees. We had the wooden pavilion built over the patio portion of the deck. It looks very good. We will add some small utility tables and planters to the patio this spring. We are now ready for new gravel on the road as soon as the weather cooperates.

The ranch looks good even though it is winter. We have trimmed more cedar trees in front of the house and at the entry. We really need to consider a new entry and gate. We just have a simple cedar post entry and stock gate. An automatic gate will help keep people out and a pipe fence entry will look much better,

Winter of 2010

This has already been the coldest weather we have had since we have lived on the ranch. We had one cold spell while we were gone, one following, and now a third. We are actually preparing for the coldest weather in over 20 years this week. I'll let you know.

The Cardinals are becoming more active. The deer appreciate the corn we put out for them. I saw the large fawn I mentioned in previous posts. He actually grew a set of horns and is very big. He will be a big trophy buck in just a few years. We get a group of about eight does, groups of individual young bucks, and a few big bucks almost daily at the feeders. They are fun to watch.

Only a little cosmetic work left on the pool. I will order new gravel for the road and some pea gravel for around the house as soon as the weather improves and that will finish the project.