Crawfish Boil . . .

Tis the season of the Crawfish.  It is a little late, this time of year is near the middle to the end of the season.  But early cold weather drove the Crawfish down in their holes to come out later this year.  So our annual boil falls right in there at the right time to get the best of the Crawfish.

The cook, catered from a local owned Crawfish supplier and cater for the boils, said that the season would be extended this year due to the lateness of the crop.  We noted that the average Crawfish was bigger than usual with some real giants in bunch.  That's a good thing.

I noted one supermarket chain was touting the little beasties at a reduced price per bag.  The price per pound was a bit higher for smaller amounts.  The omen is that they are readily available here in North Texas.  There are many Cajuns or Louisianans relocated here for jobs and past hurricanes.  So there is a great market for the Louisiana delicacy.

Our boil was sponsored by the LSU Tarrant Tigers Alumni Association.  It is a money make of sorts for us, some years we make a lot some not so much.  The money all goes for scholarships to LSU.  We, the Tarrant Tigers, have sufficient funds to endow one scholarship and extra funds to fund yet another scholarship.  To top it off we have one member that graciously gives one scholarship annually.  So we have three scholarships annually.  Our brethren in Dallas has more scholarships but have been at it a long time.

We had to split off from the Dallas club to form our own local club.  And we have been moderate successful.  The boil is both a social thing and fund raising thing.  Regardless, we enjoy eating the native freshwater crustaceans.  They are highly seasoned, just like we like them.

Geaux Tigers!

Irises Are Out . . .

Our Iris group is in bloom.  Some are prettier than others but all are nice.  They are the "bearded Iris" or Dutch Irises.  You will notice none are plain old blue.  Alas I have long forgotten their names but they are as pretty as ever.

Tomorrow I will take more photographs and perhaps get a lot of good pictures to post.  I think the hard winter we had has done much to make the blooms look good.

I will split some of them and place them in other spots in the yard.  That way we will have more color next Spring.

 
 

The Market is Concerned about War . . .

I have tried to stay away from politics, especially US national politics.  But it appears that it is inevitable that I must comment. 

Our weak and hapless Chief Executive is letting us drift into war.  Maybe not our war but yet a war in the Ukraine Republic.  Sounds almost Hitleristic in his grab of the Sudeten Lands of Czechoslovakia during the on set of WW-II.  Putin is slowly carving up the Ukraine in much the same manner with much the same excuse.  He does so because he senses the weakness in out President in his indecision and lack of world leadership.

Today we learned a US warship was deliberately buzzed by a Russian fighter.  That is a serious indiscretion and totally unresponsive by our government.  It further reinforces Putin's resolve.  Are we seeing yet another Anthony Eden type diplomatic failure?

Europe seems to recognize what is going on and we have our heads stuck in the ground.  The Russians saw Obama cave into the Iranians.  He, Putin, is far more stronger than the Iranians.  So if the punny Iranians can get away with what they have done, then it should be no problem for him to take the Ukraine back with little or no effort.

Obama has done little for the economy, he is destroying the medical system and now the world is beginning to burn and he goes off to campaign.  Geez what loser.  I hope our nation can survive.

Gold Finches . . .

We are now seeing the little Finches in their summer color, bright yellow for the males. 
The females do not change color.

The behavior is different now.  Instead of flocks of birds of a feather attacking the feeders, we see territorial behavior.  Only one or two birds on the feeders at one time.  Usually a female and a male together.  If they are not matched even though it may only be one bird or either sex, if it is not a mate it gets chased off the feeder by the dominant bird.  So we see a lot of that kind of activity now.

The males are definitely in their best of summer breeding colors.  They are very bright yellow hence the name Gold Finches.  Alas the female remains in her normal colors, much more drab in color.

But even as I look out at the feeders now, each one has but one bird on it.  Before the color changing occurred there would be up to five birds per feeder.  Now it is usually just  two max, and it is a male female combination.

The wind is ripping today, up to 20 mph.  That does not seem to bother them, they hang on and pick away at the seed in the sacks.  The sacks have very course weave and it allows the Nyjer seed to poke out.  The birds pull the seed and eat it.  They may do that straight up or inverted.   Makes not difference to them.

I will soon have to reload the feeders.  We have plenty of Nyjer seed yet to feed them.  Nyjer is sometimes spelled Niger.  The seed is also referred to as thistle seed but is not related to the normal thistle we see around here or in the states for that matter.  The seed has been treated, heated up, and thus will not sprout here, or if it does it is stunted and does nor reproduce.

So the Gold Finches have not left us, but rather have begun to pair up.  Once they are mated, they become very very territorial.  And as usual some of them have not migrated.  The experts say they are around us year round, we just do not see them as there are plenty of food for them besides the Nyjer seed.

Firing Up the Lawnmower . . .

The grass is sporadically growing in the yard.  The St Augustine got hit hard by the multiple freezes but is showing life.  Bermuda is doing okay.  Weeds are abounding in spite of treatments.  So it is time to get the old John Deere rolling again.

Got to check tire pressure, change oil and get some fresh gasoline.  And as a precaution charge up the battery.  I'll not attack the mowing blades just yet.  I will have to grease up the front axle and other points that require it.  It is the annual Kabuki Dance of the lawnmower.

The machine is still relatively new.  It has maybe 700 hours on it, probably a little less.  It gets used generally once a week in the summer, sometimes twice a week but not that often.  And it takes about a half a tank of gasoline and perhaps a little over an hour to cut the entire yard.

I get to do the edging and weed eating.   Not hard to do but somewhat labor intensive as I have to bend over under the peach tree and chase the spots the lawn mower can not reach.

Spring is here.  It hit 88 degrees yesterday.  That is the beginning of hot.

Spring Is Here . . .

We had the first of our spring storms yesterday evening.  Hail up to the size of quarter, but not to many that size.  But it went on for at least 20 minutes, with showers of hail intermixed with heavy rain.  We needed the rain but not the hail.

We get this weather phenomenon called a "dry line."  It shows up clearly on the weather plots and it is where hot dry air collides with cool moist air.  The result is humongous thunder storms and Tornados.  The storms take most of the day to brew up and around sundown they start with the lightening and thundering, rain and sometimes hail.  Often small Tornados form up and do damage to trees and power lines.  Lightening strikes the power substations and cause power outages.  The expression often used by the weather people on TV is that the "thunderstorms are firing off."

Occasionally, we get monster Tornados that tear up whole communities.  The big Tornados are classed as F-5s, the little ones are F-1s.  An F-5 hit a little community to the south of us maybe 10 or 15 years ago.  It wiped out houses on concrete slabs to the ground, it tore out all the trees and shrubs.  It literally cleaned off the grass.  Fortunately, it was a very sparsely populated area and so only a few folks lost their homes.  To my knowledge they never rebuilt, rather they moved off to some new location.

Last year Tornados tore up a part of Granbury, a town just south of us.  It was a killer and even now Granbury is just beginning to recover.  It had a lot of retirement tracts with mobile homes.  The good old "double wide" turned into death traps.  To top things off the drought has lowered Lake Granbury so far down that lake front property is referred it as desert front property.  The lake has receded so far that the boats in their lifts are hung above dry ground.  It is a strange sight to see. 

Weather here is fickle.  It gets hotter than Tucson, Arizona.  It is almost as dry as Arizona, but not quite - yet.  Lakes around here are way down.  Lake Weatherford is down 7 or 8 feet.  Some lakes like the one near Austin, TX is down 45 or more feet.  So the spring rains are welcome, just not the other stuff.

We have about a month of exposure to the dry line effect.  It occasionally shows up in mid summer.  That can really generate big thunder bumpers and bad Tornados.  It is worse in Oklahoma than here but we have had our lulus too.

No matter where you live there is some phenomena that affects the local area.  Earthquakes in California, hurricanes along the Gulf coast and in Arizona.  Spring storms all across the middle us into Ohio (Xenia, OH got wiped out by an F-5 Tornado some years ago).  The Atlantic coast gets its hurricanes too. 

There is no safe haven.  Spring brings the  severe storms and new life in the trees and soil.  There is always a price to pay.

Its Raining . . .

Spring has arrived.  And with it the spring rains are here.  Today has been shower after shower, some of it with large rain drops.  Lord knows, we need it, the lakes are way down.  The summer drought has caused a concern about lake levels and the use of water for lawns, etc.

Conservation measures are in place almost everywhere to save water.  We all carefully use it.  We are personally fortunate in that we have our own irrigation well.  Some say we too much obey the conservation rules about watering.  I do not think so, that is why we had a well installed, to avoid such things and not to use city water for the lawns.  There is a water district now but we are all grandfathered into the district, so do not have to go backwards to their present day standards.

For instance, they require you to have two acres to drill a well.  We have slightly less than an acre lot so under the new rules would not be able to have a well.  Since we do have one, if we run into trouble with our well, we can redrill our well if necessary.  That is part of the grandfather clause.

Any, the aquifer is getting recharged along with the lakes.  The rain is quite wide spread and is coming up to us from the Southwest Texas area, probably from Mexico and the Pacific vice anything from the  Gulf of Mexico to the South of us.

There are two aquifers under us, the Paluxey and another one.  The Paluxey is about 200 feet down, have to drill through two layers of chalk (same stuff as the Austin Chalk that is thousands of feet below Pointe Coupee Parish).  Parts of the Paluxey to the East of us, under the Western edge of Fort Worth around Carswell AFB and the Lockheed plant is contaminated.  We here do not have that problem.

The water is potable but has grit in it.  The grit is microscopic in nature but will mess up some of the irrigation water valves.  I had to replace all of ours with so called "dirty water" valves.  The internal guts of the dirty water valves back flush themselves and do not have the grit build up in them.  The clean water valves begin to seep and leak through and one sees water sprinklers dribbling water when they should be cut off.  Our neighbor suffers from this all the time and has not figured out the problem.

Any rate the rains are welcome.  I just cannot go fly Radio Control in the stuff.

Finches Are Gone . . .

Well the feeding frenzy by the little Gold Finches is over.  For some reason they take off for places and locals unknown to us.  The weather is moderating and I supposing they are feeling the "Call of the North."  Anyway they are no longer feeding on the Niger seed. out under the Oak tree.

I read up on them and the experts say many of them stay in the area but during mating season they become very territorial.  No longer going about in large flocks but are there in singles or couples.

We see them later in the Spring.  They seems to come back.  Could it be just those Finches that wintered over in Mexico and this is their northern range.  We just do not know.  I am guessing not a lot of tagging of Finches has occurred and we just do not have the demographics down pat.

So for the time being they are not to be seen.  We enjoyed watching them run up and down the backs or hang upside down to feed.  They had the method down pat.  I would see Cardinals and Mocking Birds looking at them or on the ground but no where near the feeders.  They just could not figure it out.

When and if they return this Spring, I will write them up.  But until then, we will move on to some other subject.