Bluebonnets, Birds and Baby Calves

It is early April, and spring has officially arrived.  A couple of weeks ago, we saw our first bluebonnets at the farm. 

They bloom there a little later than the ones here in the Austin area, where there were plenty on the Turkey Creek Nature Trail. 

East of town, toward Elgin where Rue and I take herding lessons, there were not only plenty of bluebonnets,

but glorious fields of Indian paintbrush as well.  

Rue agreed to pose for me, but she was really more interested in looking for sheep.

At the farm, another new calf has appeared.  B1, the cow that was responsible for my colorful “shiner” last month, presented her new baby bull calf.  He's a cute little fellow, and will soon be as big as his brother, shown behind him.

And, our birds are back.  I’ve been excited to hear the calls of black-and-white warblers and golden-cheeked warblers on the mountain southeast of the farm house.  The birds aren’t so much shy as they are quick.  

A black-and-white warbler appeared for just a couple of seconds, blending in with the branches of the surrounding trees and darting away before I could capture an image.  The golden-cheeked warbler males sing each morning, staking out their nesting territories.  They often come when they hear the recorded calls from the Audubon app on my cell phone, flitting in to sing a few bars, then sailing off again.  Many photos I am able to capture are just blurs of movement, and when they do sit still for a few seconds my perspective is often just the bottom of a bird.

I have been able to capture a few recognizable images, though. 

Maybe next week I’ll catch one singing from a nearby treetop instead of viewed through the branches.

March was a good month for other birds, however.  A couple of weeks ago when Rue and I were on our way to our herding lesson, this young roadrunner came trotting right down the middle of Honey Tree Lane (where our destination is Michele McGuire's Paws for Ewe Farm.)  

He uttered funny guttural chirps and clicks while he pecked around in the road and in the neighbor's yard.  And, he gave me a good opportunity to capture several nice images before we concentrated on herding sheep.  It's a good reminder never to leave home without the camera...I could never have captured these images with my phone.

This week we also paid a quick visit to Fredericksburg to meet friends Rick and Linda Lorentz, who have been wintering in Rockport and are headed north for the summer months.  Lunch at Altstadt Brewery was delightful, 

The brewery itself was shiny and most impressive,

And the downstairs bar was especially inviting.

Then we shared a glass of wine at Grape Creek Vineyards before returning to Austin.  

Rick and Linda are dear friends.  We wish them safe travels and look forward to catching up with them in September when we return to Custer, SD.  

March Madness

March pretty much came in like a lion and has been for the most part cold, wet and blustery.  Compared to what our friends up north are enduring, our weather has been balmy, but to this Texas girl, it has been lacking.  Enough of whining, though.  We have enjoyed our time here in Volente as well as at the farm.  We’ve just been waiting and waiting for spring to come.  

We’re almost there, though.  Flocks of sandhill cranes flew over earlier in the week, headed north.  We have also had north-bound ducks on our tanks as well, but they don't stick around.

The live oaks in Volente began dropping their leaves about a week ago, filling the pool and piling up in drifts on the patio.  Next will come their annual blooms…nasty, polleny squiggles that turn everything a sickly shade of mustard.  We’ll just have to endure hat part; the rest of the year their shade makes it all worth the March mess.

A few bluebonnets are appearing, as well as Indian paint brushes.  But on the 13th, we woke at the farm to a sure sign that spring is just around the corner…the year’s first newborn calf.  Red Cow had been teasing us for a couple of weeks with a swelling belly and pendulous udder.  She is one of my favorite cows for several reasons.  First of all, she is calm and gentle; hardly anything upsets her.  She even tolerates the dogs pretty well for a new mother…as long as they don’t come too close to her baby.  And she has never threatened to butt John or me, even with a newborn at her side.  

On Wednesday morning, I was so proud of Red Cow.  She had chosen to have her calf only a couple of hundred yards from the house, not on the back side of the pasture in heavy brush.  I like to think she knew that so close to the house she would be safer from the packs of coyotes that serenade us on a regular basis, and which could be deadly for a new calf if mom and its dad and aunties weren’t alert.  Even several hours after the birth of her calf, one of Red Cow’s sisters was grazing close by, and didn’t leave until the sun was well up and the coyotes all snug in their dens, or wherever they go during the daylight hours.  

Red Cow’s calf wasn’t the only excitement on Wednesday.  We had our own version of March Madness later that morning.  With help from Rue moving them along, the rest of the cattle were lured into the working pens and received a dose of insecticide to kill flies, lice and worms.  Some of them also got ear tags so they are easier to identify at a distance.  Except for Red Cow, they are all black and sometimes hard to tell apart.  

As the cows were going down the runway and into the squeeze chute, one of them slipped and fell.  She couldn’t get up in the tight chute, and we were afraid she would thrash around and hurt herself.  John called to my brother, who was helping, to open the side of the chute to allow the cow to get up.  I was standing just outside and wasn’t paying proper attention.  The side of the chute opened as they say, "smartly," propelled by a 1,000-pound bovine on the other side.  God must have been watching out for me; I was wearing a hat, which offered some protection, and only received a glancing blow on my forehead from the side of the chute as it swung open.  I do have a souvenir, though, and it will probably be with me for another week or so.

We spent another couple of days at the farm, enjoying a good visit with my brother and his wife and one of my nieces and her family.   Rue got to help round up and move the cows, and she and Kota found time for a game of capture the stick.

John and I returned to Volente on Thursday, to be back in town for our 22nd anniversary.  We celebrated on Saturday night with good friends Carol and Larry Hardaway.  Our anniversary was on March 15, and their 20th anniversary falls on March 17.  Our evening at Truluck’s was great fun, even if it didn’t help much with our efforts to trim our waistlines.

But can you blame us?  That baked Alaska was scrumptious!

Onward Through the Fog

The temperatures were dropping but the adrenalin was racing this weekend at the TSDA-sanctioned Gatesville Sheep Dog Trial.  Thanks to Brent Swindell for a lovely venue…

even if he couldn’t arrange for sunny skies and springlike temperatures.  These were truly “Onward Through the Fog” conditions, as the earliest dogs on the Open course had to outrun without being able to see the sheep.  And for a while the handlers couldn’t see sheep or dogs until they were halfway back on the course.  When I arrived after lunch on Friday, it was still foggy, but you could at least see the sheep.  (Near the tree line on the far right between the two white panels...can you see them?)

Rue and I haven’t graduated to the Open Ranch class yet, so she wasn’t running, but I had a great time photographing some of the competitors.

And their awesome dogs.

On Saturday, I spent my day serving as scribe for Open Ranch Judge Wilda Bahr.  She is from San Diego, CA, but is in Texas to compete in several Open trials with her dogs, and to serve as a judge for classes in which she isn’t entered.  I thoroughly enjoyed Wilda’s company, and learned a lot, as I always do when I scribe (keep score) for one of our excellent judges.

Here are a couple of photos of Wilda and one of her dogs on the Open course on Friday.

I look forward to the next trial.  Hopefully Rue and I will be participants again before long.

Time Warp?

It has been a little over a month since my last post, and it feels like we have been in a time warp in the interim…or maybe that, like Alice, we stepped through the looking glass into some place we never wanted to be.  Unlike hers, ours wasn't magical.

I don't think it was the moon, although we did enjoy watching the super wolf blood moon total eclipse on January 20.  Here is the before image,

followed by a couple of progress shots,

and finally the beautiful blood color as the eclipse achieved totality.

So, here is the whole sordid through-the-looking-glass story.  We had made a quick trip to the farm on January 24 to feed the cows and check things.  Then, on Friday, January 25 as we were returning to Austin, John began experiencing severe back pains and extreme nausea.  I drove home, and by the time we reached Leander, he did something he has never done before (and I hope never needs to do again).  He told me to pull into the St. David’s Emergency Clinic just south of Seward Junction.  

He was the only patient, and received lots of attention and many tests, but little relief.  The first doctor thought he had a kidney stone; the second diagnosed diverticulitis.  The IV medications gave him a short respite from the pain, and after a delightful hour or so at the 24-hour pharmacy we went home with fistfuls of drugs for pain and nausea, as well as antibiotics for the supposed bowel infection.  That launched us into two-plus weeks of tests and doctor visits during which the pain abated somewhat, but the nausea persisted, to the puzzlement of all concerned.  

The good news is that, after two more emergency room visits, multiple appointments with various specialists, more tests and a three-day stay in the hospital, John is finally back to better-than-normal.  The culprit was apparently an extremely low blood sodium level.  His blood pressure medications have been adjusted; the sodium is back to normal levels, and he says he feels better than he has in years.  On the upside, he has lost over 15 pounds that he didn’t need in the first place, and is looking a lot more like the man I married some 22 years ago.  (I need to do some more pound-shedding myself if I'm going to resemble the woman he married.) John is happy that he feels and looks better, but says he doesn’t recommend what he had to go through to get there.

Soooo.....life is returning to normal around here.  We are back at the farm for a few days.  It's cold this week, and the cows appreciate a bale of hay and some range cubes to supplement the winter grass that is beginning to sprout.

Rue makes sure No. 7 doesn't get more than her fair share of the hay.

And yesterday, before the rain set in, John and Daniel set the posts for the new working pen.  (Thank you ever so much, Allan and Jef for cutting all those beautiful posts!)  

We will head back to Volente tomorrow, and expect it to look a little more springlike the next time we visit.