I’m on the phone, well not really. I’m having a keyboard “CHAT” with Jamie at Verizon. Doo dee doo doo who knows if she is AI or a breathing human being? And where exactly doe she or it reside? I guess that doesn’t make any difference anymore does it? We ended the matter of how to make a one-time overseas
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It was the beginning of June and I was starting to think I was guilty? Morning Glories hadn’t shown up in the garden cage to brighten the start of every day. Why would I think that my intervention caused the absence? Well, for the first time, last year I harvested Morning Glory seeds. It was a late season capture so
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The Cow’s All-Day Breakfast Club. Start giving them treats of scrumptious cubes and they appear serendipitously for more. Horned Big Girl always initiates a scrum.
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Having moved from Houston I’ve been in my Texas country homestead for two and one-half years. Respecting the environment I’ve tried very hard never to intentionally kill any animal, bug or insect. Even when inside I trap navigationally-challenged flies, bees and spiders into an empty veggie can. Using a thin piece of cardboard as a cover I then give them
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Well, the laws of celestial bodies have finally kicked in and summer is a thing of the past. Although here in south central Texas you still have to look over your shoulder because you never really know when heat will return like a tenant – with good riddance – you evicted. The point was well made last night listening to
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Recently back from our respective vacations Ernie and I resume our early morning walks. Before I open the door I shine the flashlight through the glass and check its bottom outside: is our little toad ensconced in the corner? He isn’t. So with full enthusiasm we go into the darkness; Ern’s leash is on because I never know if we
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“All Scorpions are venomous. Only about 25-30 of them have a type of venom that is potent enough to make someone very ill or to kill them.”[*] I’m glad I searched that. If I hadn’t I might have thought all 90 of the species could kill me; that “only” means my chances of dying-by-bite are down to roughly one in
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My neighbor recently introduced pitch black “Studly” – formally known by an ear tag as 98 – to his modest family of cows. He arrived with subdued fanfare: if a dozen regaled trumpeters were normally lined up to salute a lad of his breeding, in this case – due to budgetary restraints – he’d get one. Like the equivalent of a teenager, his mind
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Having now lived two full years of an agrarian Texas country life, I’ve come to appreciate Nature’s hand in it. It is just as random and capricious out here as it is in the midst of cheek-to-jowl big city humanity. The difference is that in farm country our animal kingdom friends are close-by, clearly seen, and there are more of them.
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The title of this piece was a commonly used expression with the WWII generation. My parents – and especially our Mother – used it often. It meant why waste your time on that; or don’t bother it isn’t worth the trouble. I brought it back for the moment to be used literally: stop and save some berries “for the birds.” In
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