March 24, 2003

I have changed my schedule at work - to conserve gas - and only drive into town three days a week for my part-time hours.  So, I have the morning set aside to do "nothing but laundry."  Monday is, after all, wash day.

Ahhh, Friday was the official First Day of Spring.  I’m sure that if everybody in Denver dug far enough through the snow, y’all would find it somewhere!  Congratulations on the MUCH needed moisture.  I hope that April and May provide some classic thunderstorms.  The Victoria newspaper even printed a picture of a 15 foot drift – which was passed around at work with amusement. 

The weather has been perfect here for the past week.  In the seventies during the day (high of 80) with cool nights and lots of sunshine.  The azaleas have come out in full force in all of the yards in town.  I have pink bougainvillea and purple lantana hanging baskets out in the front, and am going to spend another afternoon in shorts and a swimsuit top to re-pot all of my spider plants.  Thank goodness for South Texas!

In plenty of time for Easter, JW brought me a surprise this past week.  I came home on Monday evening to a box of baby chicks.  I forgot how darned cute they are for the first week!  For the “official record:” we have 2 New Hampshire Reds, 3 Sussex, 3 Bantams, and 1 Leghorn.

They have been very busy for the last few days, literally shrieking with delight when a bug is spotted, and scratching the ground with a vengeance when they're "on the move."  Now, sprouting new feathers, a couple of them can just now hop up and out of the box and venture into the wild unknown of the wash house.  We let a couple of them explore yesterday, with a dog gate at the door to keep the trustees from venturing out to the yard.  They should be big enough - and certainly brave enough - to go out to the chicken coop in the next couple of weeks.

This picture was taken before JW started work on the coop.  You can see where the tin has been blown away from the wall, and the old roost boxes inside.  It's all cleared out now, with new nest boxes and wire.  The enclosed size is 12 feet by 16 feet.  I'll send new pictures of it and the birds when I get them in.  One of the tiny reds looks sure to be a hen, and is called Junebug.  The little fellow with the crest of feathers may be Top Knot the Bantam Rooster.  The Leghorn - male or female - has invariably been dubbed Foghorn.  I think it makes for better storytelling when they have descriptive names!

JW's birthday was yesterday, and we spent most of it outside.  Our freezer is full of fresh beef, which we picked up at the meat house on Saturday - and mesquite smoked steak was in order.  It was melt-in-your-mouth good.  Darrell and Denise came to visit, and we had chocolate cake, strawberries, and lots of fun.

It really is quite the chorus from sunrise until after lunch.  We have a Mockingbird that sits up in the pecan tree outside my office window, and sings his heart out.  For those of you who don't know, the State Bird of Texas mocks and mimics the songs of other birds.  Located on the Spring and Fall migratory routes, Matagorda County has remained  - for ten years running - the top spot in the US for most types of birds seen in a given time.  You can imagine how many birdsongs he must go through in his daily repertoire!

We had our last calf of this season born on Thursday.  I'm not sure yet if it's a girl or not.  The bulls are grown another year, growling and bellowing to each other's pastures in the evenings - and bugling to the cows in the day. It reminds me of the elk in Colorado, except that these are 2000-pound horned beasts!  It's amazing how many years of domestication those primal sounds seem to erase.  They sound more like whales than cattle.

So, there you have the latest scoop.  South Texas here, signing off for another day in the sun.