February 5, 2012 Super Sunday

Neither Bill nor I are sports fans...  in fact we don't have  a TV....  so...  truth is... neither of us is sure whether the Super Bowl is today or not (or who would be playing if it is)...  but it's Sunday...  and I needed a catchy header for my blog today.

Moving right along...

Bill's birthday was a couple days ago...

Here's the Birthday Boy with his loot.  That coffee cup has pictures of him holding his great-grandson, Caleb, in Michigan and his great-granddaughter, Evie, in Ohio.  A new edition of the National Geographic field guide to birds just came out...  that was a "must have".  And... of course, the yellow cake with chocolate icing.  My musical candle I'd used for the past 10 years finally gave up trying to play a tune and frankly.. looked like it had been gnawed on.  So...  no candle to make a wish on this year.  Maybe Bill made a wish anyway....

The other day I posted some pictures of a nice buck... taken by the game camera...  It's been really humid here and the lens has been fogging up at night, creating some very fuzzy pictures.  But occasionally some come out fairly well...

These 3 does were at the feeder early yesterday morning.  Sometimes we see over

a dozen deer milling around the feeder at a time.  Quite a sight.

I put out the Bushnell game camera yesterday.  We have 2 bird feeders right outside the door of our rig and have a multitude of birds feed regularly. 

I had no idea we had these critters during the night.  I'm glad our feeders are hung on hooks about 4' off the ground (you can see the post of one of the shepherd hooks between these 2 raccoons).  I keep my bird seed in a large bin just outside our door and I'm surprised they haven't raided that.

Another night-time critter...  Jackrabbits aren't totally nocturnal but tend to be more active at night.  He's a pretty big critter....  I wonder how much havoc he wreaks in Celeste's flower gardens during the warmer months?

It's only February 5, but there are already signs of spring here in this part of Texas.  Bill planted about a ton of flower bulbs around Celeste's yard in December.  He'd dug up daffodils, magic lilies and some peonies from our place in Ohio and brought them here.  Already some of them are starting to break through the ground.

Another sure sign of spring is...

Baby Goats!

The place across the road from Victor and Celeste's house is sort of a mini-ranch or farm.  They have a couple dozen goats, some chickens and rabbits...  maybe some other stuff, it's hard to know.  But.. the does are starting to kid.  There were 7 kids when Bill  I walked over the other day... and that evening when Celeste & I were taking a walk, another doe had just (and I DO mean JUST) had a kid.  In fact, it looked like she might still be carrying another, so we didn't stay around so she could deliver without added distraction.

Since Bill & I raised goats for 18 years...  and have kept more than one in our kitchen to bottle feed..  we both enjoy the goats across the road.  Especially the new-born kids...  I'd like to hop the fence and pick one up to cuddle for a while.

One of my favorite activities is to go geocaching.  There are several very active geocachers in this area and they have hidden hundreds of caches within a half hour or hour's drive from Celeste's house.  I have this area "bookmarked" so if a new cache is hidden and comes up on line, I get an e-mail telling me the GPS coordinates.

A new cache came up last week...  It's kind of a competition to see who is "First to Find".  Bill & I went out the next day and looked around...  but...  to no avail.

That evening a local cacher was "first to find"...  so, even though we wouldn't have that honor, it still was a cache I wanted to find.  The next morning off I went...

Yep!  This is it!  It's a decoy dove with a camoed bottle attached to it's tail to hold the log book.  And it's perched in one of those pesky juniper trees.  It's quite a unique cache container and blends in so well that I'm not surprised we didn't find it the first time looking.

Speaking of looking, I'm always checking out whatever's around me.  If possible I'll drive home a different route than I went...  I look at everything!  I'm always reading street and road signs (doesn't keep me from getting lost, but I still read them).  How would you like to live on...

CHICKEN GRISTLE ROAD!!!!!

Don't you just kind of wonder who the heck NAMED this road?  And WHY???  I didn't drive down it to read the names on the mailboxes...  maybe they are every bit as interesting.....

And...  how would you like to live here?

Can't you just imagine the teen-age daughter giving her new boyfriend directions on how to pick her up for their first date?  Maybe she just says.. "I'll meet you at the mall".

Another place I pass every time I drive into Granbury is this...

Of course my imagination runs wild...  I picture the train stopping on the tracks in the road, the engineer hopping out to open the gate...  getting back in and getting the train through, closing the gate, and then walking WAY up to the front of the train to get it going again.  Afterall, there are no cabooses anymore. Meanwhile, traffic is backed up on the highway, the cattle in the field are all milling around the train...  oh yes...  my imagination goes crazy.

Now... truth is...  this is a seldom used spur that goes to a huge electric power plant.  It happens to run through a couple of ranch lands from the mainline to the plant.  In all the times we've traveled on this road we've never seen any train activity.  But...  it's still fun to imagine....

While I wander around the countryside geocaching and stuff like that, what is Bill doing?

Victor built a new garage when we were here last year and it isn't finished yet.  He recently had insulation sprayed on the ceiling and upper parts and now the work benches, tool boxes and shelves can be installed.  Bill is building shelves that will go in the loft in the back area.  I think he finished them yesterday - even the painting - so I'm sure he'll move on to another project soon. 

In fact, with spring well on it's way, I think erecting the martin house is next on the list.

But that's for another day...