The Errors of My Way, Etc

I better begin this blog by explaining what happened to yesterday's post.  As I've written before the internet service here is a real pain.  Exceedingly slow...  to the point of frequently just timing out before it gets around to downloading stuff.  As much as I enjoy reading other blogs lots of times I never get to see the attached photos...  they just won't download.  I've been writing my blogs on Word and copying them onto Blogspot, inserting photos when/if I can.  Things were going along fairly well last night and I was finally ready to "publish"...  so....  hit the "publish" button.  Nothing...  no change of screen...  nada... nil...  zip...  zilch.  Okay... lets try again...  and again...  nothing.  Well, apparently I tried 8 or 10 times before giving up.  At this point I went back to the dashboard to see if something was messed up.  Well..  yes... and I'd sure made it worse.  Every time I hit the "publish" button it did...  so...  that explains the multiple posts.  I immediately started deleting all the duplicates thinking I'd spare my readers this latest little problem...  but looks like y'all were subjected to it anyway.  I'm sorry for any inconvenience.  I kinda liked Red's comment on what I was doing out here in the desert, but it's been years and years since I read those books by Carlos Casteneda, but will admit, I haven't had any magnificent computer experiences out here so far.

Well...  life goes on, despite my screw-ups.  I'm back tonight with some more photos...

As I've written, we seldom eat meat.  I figure if you're gonna blow it, you might as well blow it big time....  the church I go to had a festival Saturday evening.  It's mostly a hispanic congregation, and the food booths reflected that Mexican-Tex/Mex culture.

I seldom let any chance go by to taste new foods...  And this was no exception...

This is a tripe taco...

Fried to a crisp, it tasted a lot like fried chicken livers...  maybe a little like cracklin's....   it was actually quite tasty.  The only way I'd ever eaten tripe before was in the stew, Menudo.  Guess it's nothing I'd eat every day, but.... hey, I had to try it!

I've expanded the Backyard Buffet...  found a feed store in Carrizo Springs that sells a better variety of bird seed than the mostly millet mix that Wal-Mart carries.  Also found out that some of the critters here like apples.

Now, we not only have several ground squirrels, we have a whole family of wood rats that visit regularly.

I'm not sure it's a rat, but it looks too big for a mouse.

This Desert Inn Buffet is only about 10' from our rig.... great view from our windows, BUT... I know a little about the food chain, and figure I might be attracting some herpetological species as well.  I'm hoping it will take the snakes a while to find my critter cafe.  Well, we do have road runners here - maybe they could control the snakes.

As well as the seeds and the apples, I have some oranges impaled on the nearby trees.

Dad showing off his new offspring.

I'd like to think that this Bullock's oriole was after the oranges, but think so far all those oranges have attracted are ants.

Another first time critter (for us) here...

Bill saw this Texas Tortoise  (Gopherus berlandirel) moving across the road today.

We only have box turtles and snapping turtles in Ohio, so he was new to me.  See that fork-like structure?  It's located under his chin (part of the shell) and called the "gular scute" or "gular projection".  Hey... out here I learn something new everyday.

Speaking of something new, I logged in our 40th bird today.  And what a beautiful bird it is, too!  The Green Jay, which we've seen only in the Valley, flew across the road in front of me as I was walking to the pond.  I didn't get a photo of it, but did get a positive ID.

I see a lot of these Black-throated sparrows...

They, along with the Lark sparrow, seem to be the most common sparrow around here.

Rick wrote about the wild sunflowers up in the Vancouver, BC area...  Well, of course Texas can't be out-done....

These are blooming all along the roadsides near where we live.  I pulled one apart to see if the will have those big, fat sunflower seeds - maybe seeds, but they will be tiny.

We got a few sprinkles this afternoon.  Not enough to fill a thimble, but the sun came out and we got this rainbow.

You can tell it's late in the day.... look how "flat" the arch is.  But a rainbow is always a promise of good things to come...  So what better way to end the day?

That's All For Today!