It’s been an interesting week or so here at Casa de Fire Ant, thanks to the endless parade of wildlife traipsing past our abode, occasionally stopping to destroy our lawn on their way to whatever other endeavors attract them. Last week, we went out of town for a couple of days but I left my… Continue reading The Mystery of the Murdered Fawn
News You Can Use To Snooze
[This headline is the result of coercion.]
Random reporting on random events. Surely you’re not surprised.
Channeling the Wily Armadillo
Note: The following contains critical armadillo trapping advice. Ignore it at your own peril. You’ve been warned. There’s also a walking stick gif. Alert Gazette readers will recall the account of my armadillo trapping woes, wherein the creatures were zooming in and out of the malfunctioning trap as if it were a port-a-potty next to… Continue reading Channeling the Wily Armadillo
Random Thursday: The Tuesday Edition
It’s been awhile since we’ve published a Random Thursday article [Ed–After reviewing this, it’s obvious that it hasn’t been long enough.] Trapping Fails Following a very quiet winter and early spring in which I actually contemplated the notion that I had trapped out the nuisance wildlife population in our immediate neighborhood. Lately, however, our game… Continue reading Random Thursday: The Tuesday Edition
Tough Love in Birdland
Alert Gazette readers will recall this account of suspected predation of a nearby bird nest by a rat snake. As devastating as it surely was, the parents refused to be discouraged, went right back to work, and hatched another brood of birdlets (black phoebes, to be precise). To date, the new batch of nestlings has… Continue reading Tough Love in Birdland
Snake Karma
Late last month we were confronted with the sad sight of three nestlings that had apparently fallen from their nest attached to a stone column about ten feet above our back porch. Two of the baby birds were already deceased and the third would soon be. There was no sign of a disturbance in the… Continue reading Snake Karma
Mors Ab Alto*
*With apologies to the 7th Bomb Wing, USAF We returned home last Sunday afternoon after a whirlwind** 750-mile weekend trip to our old stamping grounds*** in West Texas, and as we drove over the low water crossing to pick up our mail, we saw that a squirrel had recently been hit by a car and… Continue reading Mors Ab Alto*
Apple Watch Fall Detection: Annoying…but effective
The golf cart/pedestrian path next to the low water crossing over Slick Rock Creek, just south of Highway 2147, hasn’t had water running over it since the October floods. Still, much of it stays wet thanks to the splashes from cars driving through the creek. Over time, if those puddles don’t dry out, moss and… Continue reading Apple Watch Fall Detection: Annoying…but effective
Fortitude at Altitude (or, “You think your job is hard?”)
A week or so ago, I was returning home in the truck when I spotted a helicopter hovering at what I guessed to be about a half mile from our house. There was a long line suspended from the bottom of the aircraft with something attached to the end. As I turned onto the road… Continue reading Fortitude at Altitude (or, “You think your job is hard?”)
Flower Flyover
The bluebonnet crop around our little town of Horseshoe Bay is absolutely phenomenal this year. Most of the long-timers here say it’s the best showing in at least a decade. It’s probably due to the record-breaking rainfall we experienced last fall, plus a relatively warm winter. I’ve now learned that the “warm winter” is actually… Continue reading Flower Flyover