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Category: Nature

Spring Break, New Neighbors & Friday’s Random Ten on Saturday

March 9, 2007 • • Leave a comment

Los Borrachos 
“Los Borrachos” by Diego Velázquez via Wikipedia

Spring break has sprung. The weather is beautiful, mild Austin March. With SXSW, the Rodeo, high school basketball tournaments, the legislature, spring break and all the other Austin March Madness, it’s a great week for staying home.

To that end, I did some yardwork: the first mow, the last raking, some weeding. Suddenly, our yard is kind of nice again.

A couple of Carolina wrens finally moved into the wren house I hung a few weeks ago. So far, no one had moved into the wolery, but I probably hung it too late.

There are lots of blue jays around all of a sudden and a female cardinal comes to the dinner bell to share mealworms with Mr and Mrs Wren. The squirrels are back too. Joey is hoping that squirrel stew will be on the menu one of these days.

And, finally, Friday’s random ten, which I didn’t have time to post yesterday, and I know how the world hangs on what plays on my ipod each Friday…

  1. “Refusal” – Ennio Morricone – The Mission
  2. “Samba De Orfeu” – Ray Anthony – Ultra-Lounge, Volume 14: Bossanovaville
  3. “(When You Wake) You’re Still in a Dream” – My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything
  4. “Feelin’ Good” – John Coltrane – The John Coltrane Quartet Plays
  5. “Silent in the Morning” – Phish – Rift
  6. “Towards Omega” – Astral Matrix – Global Underground 006: John Digweed, Sydney
  7. “Afrique” – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – The Witch Doctor
  8. “Crackity Jones” – Pixies – Doolittle
  9. “Sick of You” – Lou Reed – New York
  10. “Theoretical Chaos” – Sonic Youth – Dirty (Deluxe Edition)

Just Some Rocks

February 22, 2007 • • Leave a comment

The other day I walked across the dam at our neighborhood’s little retention pond. I stepped right over these rocks, but only noticed them when I was walking back across with the sun at my back illuminating the rocks.

Sometimes you have to look twice to see once.

Malevolent

February 15, 2007 • • 3 Comments

I don’t know how many times I’ve walked past this tree, but each time it’s just a tree. On some nights, however, when the leaves rustle quietly in the wind, and everyone has gone inside, it looms over these houses, reaching out, waiting…

Idyll

February 12, 2007 • • Leave a comment

The ducks on our pond float south for the moment. When they reach the end of the pond, they fly north to ride the windblown current south again.

All day, long and lazy, this short migration is what they do.

I’d like to offer them a beer.

Old Photo Friday

February 9, 2007 • • 2 Comments

Sometimes the sunsets around here make me think of Jupiter, and I wonder what it would be like to live on a moon orbiting a gas giant.

I took a color photography class as an undergrad in ’92. This was in that box. I’m sure I made the image during that semester, probably in Round Rock. It could be anywhere, but the houses in the background feel like Round Rock to me.

The print was too big for the scanner so it’s cropped a bit from the original, in which the tree isn’t quite as centered.

Twigs by the Pond

February 6, 2007 • • 2 Comments

Walking along the trail by the pond, everything is jumbled – a wonderful confusion of line and color – until I focus on just one thing and try to see just that.

Twigs seem such a nothing, so easily and often overlooked. Just twigs.

But they’re there. Happening.

Old Photo Friday

January 26, 2007 • • Leave a comment

One of my favorite central Texas hikes is the Good Water Trail that follows Lake Georgetown west as it turns into the North Fork of the San Gabriel River. My dad and I hiked the whole thing in the summer of 2002. It’s not too long, but it made for a good, hot and exhausting day.

This is a picture of the springs, the good water, I suppose.

The Wolery

January 22, 2007 • • 10 Comments

Last weekend, we visited Wild Birds Unlimited to see about getting a better home for the guy out front. We got a hanging birdhouse, but on the way out we noticed some pictures of owls looking out of boxes.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “You can get owl houses?!?”

The store manager nodded and pointed to the owl nest boxes above the counter. I learned that the eastern screech owl lives in these parts, and that they eat mostly bugs, spiders and small mice. My wife and I looked at the picture and quickly decided that a home isn’t a home without some owls.

Getting it mounted in the tree was a bit of a challenge requiring a ladder and some contortions, but it’s there now. Hopefully some homeless owl will stumble on it. If not, I’m sure the squirrels will enjoy it.

While searching for screech owl info, I came upon Chris’ Eastern Screech Owl Nest Box Cam, a site dedicated to the goings on in a nest box here in Austin that’s been tricked out with cameras and other gadgetry.

Mine’s just a box, so hopefully a few Austin owls won’t mind living in something so archaic.

Incidentally, the title of this post refers to Owl’s house in The House at Pooh Corner. Owl, you’ll remember, spells his name W-O-L, but has a great deal of trouble with more difficult words like measles and buttered toast.