Hummingbird Couple

At last, the humingbird feeder attracts some birds. A couple of hummingbirds are now buzzing around the deck.

The little buggers are difficult to catch on film!

2 Dozen Mark - Cease Fire

I hit the 2 dozen mark today. Shot 2 more squirrels - one dropped dead on the first shot and the other one dragged itself down to the creek to die.

I think 24 is enough for now. I think its time to take a break.

Butterfly Bush...

Finally, something other than death and destruction in the backyard....
A butterfly in the butterfly bush....

Special thanks to Sarah for planting the Butterfly Bush (Buddleia)!

Race - No Sweat

Location: Turkey Bend Park, on Lake Travis

Team: Tammy Killebrew, Gil Ledesma, Greg Gibbs

Race Summary
1) Load bikes into 1 canoe, swim across river, pulling canoe, to MuleShoe
Ride Trail at Muleshoe
2) Trek at Muleshoe - 3 point
Rushed nav on first 2 points, lost ground (as usual)
3) Paddle back across river to do climbing wall
4) Paddle back to Muleshoe
Forgot to pick up clue sheet, so had to go back to get it.
5) Bike Ride to Spice Springs and Grelle Park
Long and very hot!
6) Paddle to Gloster Bend and trek
Boat Landing CP was stolen, so a little confusion there
Clouded over, so not so hot
Later, after we left, a kayak was stolen from same spot
7) Paddle to Grelle Park and Trek
River too shallow to reach CP area (boats had to be within 100m of cp)
Thick gooey layer of mud lined the shoreline going out 10-20m
Could stand in the mud or will sink to knees (Greg tried it)
Tammy hopped out and crawled on hands and knees, still sinking in several inches
Rest of team crawled out of boat one by one to shore,
Last one in boat paddled down about 100 m to a safe landing spot
Had to pull boat out on steep, slippery bank to then portage to CP area
8) Trek at Turkey bend
In third place, at this point
All went well until the last CP - trouble getting to the major draw
Once there, got flustered, not thinking straight, forgot to expand radius of search
Team was exhausted, Gil's back was hurting
Called it quits after a few attempts to zero in on the CP
Later, figured that we were probably within 30-40m of the CP

Time Off - Alaska

Went to Alaska from 8/4 through 8/16. Great to escape the heat.

Just opened a can of worms....

Figuratively and literally...

Now that all the micro irrigation is on place in the back, I wanted to conceal the hoses that feed the system. Unfortunately, with the deck running the full length of the house, its not that easy to do. Currently, I am running a hose over the deck to feed the system, but would like to run it under.

So, to that end, I pulled up a board adjacent to the water tap to see how I might be able to runthe hose under the deck. When I did, I discovered rotted wood and a lot of dirt with earthworms in it - and this was all on top of the concrete slab that is under the deck.

What a mess! More work to be done...

Huntin and Trappin

Got another squirrel yesterday (hit him, but he hobbled out to the creek and disappeared).
The count is up to 23.

This morning, caught another raccoon in the trap. I had been hearing the nightly screeching again, so I threw a piece of vread into the trap and the next morning, another raccoon. This time, another raccoon was hovering outside the trap as if trying to help the other escape. It was a good bit smaller than the one in the trap, so I am wondering if I trapped the mom. But the other one did look big enough to fend for itself.

This time, I drove 5 miles away to release the raccoon, just in case they were coming back to this location from the other place.