Monthly Archives: March 2010

Field Log 3/11/2010

North Erath County, Texas, 32.43 lat., -98.36 long. Elev. 1,086 ft.  Turkey Creek Quad.

5:00 p.m.  Elm tree shows first green leaves on Gibson place, two miles to the north on SH 108.  This elm tends to be the first tree showing leaves in the immediate area as it lies in a shallow draw.

Horses, Hija and Lilly, have been in Poprock pasture for two days without coming back to corral for grain, browsing on newly-emerging grasses.

Two large coyotes, off-whitish to a Charlois color, sighted near Poprock pond, trotting southwest across top of dam.  Trot in single file.  Large tails.  Horses ignore them.  Coyotes paused, then traversed down into Grove, I think.   Will check for track in the morning.

Rain and thunderstorms this afternoon.  Cooling off to lower 50s F.

Rosemary bush blooms.

Dove calls more prominent.  Type Dove.

Star’s feet less tender today from farrier trimming on Monday.

Order native grass seed tomorrow.

Turkey Creek Quad, Texas, Field Log Area, Exact Center is Flying Hat Ranch (click to enlage for fine detail)

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Field Log 3/10/2010

Poprock Pasture on March 7, 2010 (click to enlarge)

North Erath County, Texas:

5:45 p.m., in field between grove and arena, a large coyote, primarily reddish-gray, trotting, then scanning the Dooley pasture.

Two blue herons sighted flying over stock tank.

Pear tree on Blue place bloomed whitish blossoms yesterday, more blossoms today.

Some budding of brush in grove, unidentified.

Some greening and sprouting buffalo grass in pastures.

Stock tank overflow is light, flowing into Hall place stock tank.

Note: must order grass seeds immediately.  Mow down patches of cheatgrass before it emerges higher.

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The Honest Scrap Award Given to Sage to Meadow Blog

Sage to Meadow blog was given The Honest Scrap Award today.  Kittie Howard of The Block Blog gave Sage to Meadow the award for longevity, fine writing and comments.  Thank you, Ms. Howard and the blog, Adventures of The Cautionary Tale.

I must give an acceptance speech or writing to obtain The Honest Scrap Award for outstanding blogging, so in compliance with accepting this award, here are ten (10) personal items about me that most people do not know:

1.  Swimming across the coves of central Texas lakes from shore to shore, I do like.

2.  I like to sit in the stable alleyway for hours watching not only the horses, but the wildlife that comes to the corrals.

3.  Flying commercial overseas, I only fly Lufthansa.

4.  I enjoy being the only person in charge of care taking my granddaughters and grandsons, with no parents around, so that I can talk to them and they to me.

5.  I like the rain in my face.

6.  Choirs and symphonies with all stops unloosed, I like.

7.  I like afternoon naps when I can have all the windows open and hear the wind flow through the screens.

8.  I love those students that may not make the “A,” but work like crazy and long hours and come to exams with circles under their eyes, having given their “old college try” for the exam.

9.  I like the widest of open spaces, the desert south of Taos, looking at the Three Sisters Peaks.

10.  I like to drive in the springtime down through the backroads of San Saba and Lampasas Counties with the windows down, the air conditioner on the pickup full-blast, inhaling the scent of meadows of bluebonnets and paintbrushes and wildflowers I cannot even type.

Thanks again, my friends and fellow bloggers.  Here’s to making slight, but significant, changes for the common good through our writing!

(Thanks, Brenda, for being patient with me as I blog.  You do so much.)

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Animals May Be Granted Legal Protection in Switzerland

An extended protection of animals without egregious sentimentality, taking into account all parties and understanding the necessity to sustain multiple-living communities for their own sake as well as human beings, is a just cause.

These are issues for all of us to be sensitive to, whether conservative or liberal or in-between.

Ships and corporations are treated in United States courts as “fictitious” persons, so this is not as far-fetched as it might seem.  If a corporation is entitled to due process, why not the Greater Sage Grouse that is facing a retreating habitat in California and Nevada?  Or, other living, sentient beings?

Swiss May Give Animals Free Lawyers – The Lede Blog – NYTimes.com.

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Field Log 3/7/2010

North Erath County, Texas:

Spotted one Western Bluebird (Sialia mexicana) near ranch house.

No Sandhill Crane.

Repaired west water gap next to Dooley.

Bobcat track near mailbox on CR 114.

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Mono Basin area greater sage grouse

Greater Sage Grouse

The Mono Basin area greater sage grouse is an endangered species that has not been added to the protected list because of a lack of funding resources.  Surely, funds can be appropriated for protecting a beautiful bird such as this in eastern California and western Nevada.

Mono Basin area greater sage grouse.

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Early Morning Rain

Flying Hat Ranch, Texas, Early Morning Rain, March 7, 2010 (click to enlarge)

This photograph shows a late winter in Central West Texas.  This is a view from the back terrace of our ranch house, looking southward.  Six miles away, in the distance, is Hannibal, Texas.  The pasture and arena shows Bermuda and Buffalo grasses emerging.  The white pen is a round pen for training horses, a kind of school room.  Beyond the arena and round pen is the tree grove with an intermittent-flowing stream: Salt Creek.  The rain is a fine mist.  It continued misting all day long, into the evening.  The cloudy weather had all creatures off their schedules: horses did not play or prance today very much, birds were relatively quiet and I saw a skunk at 4:30 p.m. near the corral, ambling through the Dooley pasture.

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Sandhill Cranes: 350+ Northing

Yesterday at about 5:45 p.m., as I returned from the pasture, I heard the Sandhill Crane, tuk-tuk–tuk-tuk, and looked south towards Hannibal, Texas, the direction I had seen flocks earlier this week.  I saw no flocks to the south.  Catching the sound again, I looked east towards the Rust Ranch (whose horse barn repeats my microwave for internet service) and saw a huge, migratory, single congregation of Sandhill Crane heading north, three miles away, 1,500 feet a.g.l. over the Rust Ranch barns.

By my quick and dirty count, I estimated the northing cranes at about 350-500 in number.  My camera was back at the house, so I could not get there in time to snap a picture of this huge flock.

I may have this wrong, but I discerned that in this large flock of 350+, only, say, ten cranes calling, tuk-tuk.  I would have thought more vocalizations from such a large group.  But no.  It was the largest flock I have seen in flight.  I have heard large flocks on the ground in the Muleshoe, Texas, marshes and their murmurs are quite numerous before daylight.  Beautiful, peaceful chorus.

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Texas Rancher An Unlikely Environmentalist : NPR

Texas Rancher An Unlikely Environmentalist : NPR.

Down near Johnson City, Texas, this rancher has taken worn-out land and turned it into a place for wildlife, cattle, grass, plants and trees.  He’s even built a bat cave!

Although prosperous through salesmanship and Church’s Fried Chicken, he never forgot his farming roots in the Mid-West and once able, bought over-used ranch land and restored it.

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Fine Sentences February 28-March 6, 2010

These are some fine sentences from my blogroll I read during the week of February 28-March 6, 2010.   If a writer has not composed during the week, I do not make a selection.  Refer to the writer’s blog for the full posting.  See blogroll on the right margin of this page.

He ate the food provided, slept on a bunk bed in a rough barrack, and saved every pay check. Pa worked dawn to dusk beneath a scorching sun, endured the thick humidity, and avoided malaria….My grandfather carried his true love over the threshold. –Kittie Howard, The Block, on her grandfather working on the Panama Canal, buying land and building a home and parlor in Louisiana for his wife.

I told them once, “Mantengan su uso de las dos lenguas. La mente de una persona que sabe dos es mas lista.” Keep your knowledge of two languages. Your mind is smarter knowing two.” –By C.C., Color of Sand Blog, on teaching several students from Chihuahua in Bernalillo, New Mexico, Middle School.

Centennial Flat is a place I’ve spent a little time, and I was wondering if I might recognize any of the individual Joshua trees even after eighty years of change. That little one in the middle there almost leapt out at me. Let’s take a closer look.  —Chris Clarke, Coyote Crossing, on comparing Joshua trees in the Mojave from photographs taken eighty-years apart (see photos on his blog).

Old retablos, santos and other holy artifacts are in the church. The pews beckon you to sit, to pray, to stay awhile. Turquoisie Moon, on visiting the Catholic church in Chimayo, New Mexico.

My dad never misses a beat, just moves a little faster and they are fifteen again, unmarried and without children, dancing at someone’s house after church on Sunday night over in the Porter community. Then dad grins at me and I know this is my life and they are right here, still happily in love with each other and glad to have us.  —Bunny Terry, I Love New Mexico, on being in the second grade and transcending the criticisms of her second-grade teacher.

The small villages along Highway 55 have always held a special place in my hard-scrabble New Mexican heart. Using the few resources available in the barren, harsh acres, early settlers recycled the ever-present rocks into homes, walls, and churches.  —Karen Rivera, New Mexico Photography, comments on photographing The San Antonio Church near Moriarty.

I was simply told to follow my heart. –Kristy Sweetland, Stark Raving Zen, on the motivation to write, despite it all.

Oh…and the best news yet…it is sunny today, that full up, in your face sun, complete with crystal clear blue skies. –Martie, Taos Sunflower, on shaking off the winter blues in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico.

Meanwhile, down on Main Street, I could hear the sound of a dulcimer. I walked back down and saw a gal sitting on a bench, playing it as it laid there across her lap. It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. –Teresa Evangeline, on visiting Cripple Creek, Colorado, in 1975.

If it’s a choice between a lens or a bottle of water, always take the water. The Texas sun can be a relentless companion in the Hill Country and folks that don’t respect its strength soon find themselves dehydrated and exhausted. Not a great combination for a nature photographer. –Jeff Lynch, Photography, on how to survive photographing in the Texas Hill Country in spring and summer.

A time comes each winter when we look at our dwindling wood pile and wonder how we managed to burn so much wood and it’s only February. Most years we keep on top of it, but sometimes — for one reason or another — it gets away from us. –Coffee on the Mesa, Taos, on running low on firewood at the end of February.

Hippie Bus by Evangeline Chavez

It was the flower child, peace, love, or to me it was feelin’ groovy.  —Evangeline Chavez, on the 1960s and 1970s and what the decades meant to her.

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