March Madness

(Artwork: Claire Fletcher)

March has been a little crazy around here, and seeing how even more of the critters are now paying us visits....

- The swallows which I battle NOT to build their nasty mud nests on our porches and lights. (We have to hang fishing line everywhere to deter them).

There are barns everywhere around here, so I don't know why they wish to set up house here instead. I think they're the equivalent of city cats, only they're of the bird world.

They're interesting birds, but they're also extremely stubborn. When they don't get their way in building their nests on the porches and lights, they'll swoop down on ya.

- A copperhead hanging out by the garage. (Very venomous). I also saw a snake while checking on "Buddy/Jax" next door one day.

- Spiders coming inside the house.

- A slew of a new kind of winged bug I've never seen before. The other night there were hundreds of them on the front porch near my bedroom window.

- The flies are TERRIBLE this year! (I even saw my first horsefly. Man, they are huge!)

- The cacophony of crickets and grasshoppers. (Which are a HUGE battle around here. They eat everything. What you read about the monsters in the Little House books is fact).

- A mouse in the garage. (Usually they stay inside the barn).

.... it's safe to say that summer is near.



(More unwelcome critters will come - especially the scorpions - but the ones I AM looking forward to are the hummingbirds).

Even the weather is starting to disappoint. Apart from a few days of cold, it's been a very mild winter.

Not that that is anything new around here. It's just that every year you can't help but hope, ya know?

But enough complaining, because March also presents the arrival of sweet calves and pretty bluebonnets painting the countryside! As a matter of fact, we looked out the window Monday afternoon and saw yet another white calf! It was lying down next to the pond, so we alerted our neighbor. (There's been misfortune concerning that before). Thankfully, he had already known and was keeping an eye on it.

By the way, he told us that his bull's name is "Zorro." Cute, huh?











No wonder I hear a bird on the porch next to my bedroom window every morning. The silly thing has built a nest inside our Coca Cola Crate.







Did I mention there's also a sweet speckled egg inside the nest/Coca Cola crate? (I just hope the snakes stay away!)



I think that "Hugs" - the neighbor's donkey - is really liking these new babies. I'm not sure I've ever seen her so playful!

















See what I mean about the flies? I can't even take a pic of our new Irises without having to shoo one away a dozen times.













The video and pics I took out front are a little shaky/blurry because I had to hold Izzy at the same time. (If I even go near a door her head practically spins 360 degrees. She's very controlling of me, so this time it was just "easier" to take her with me).






















(Artwork: Jane Maday)

Not that anyone is reading this, but I think I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that I saw an eagle! It was flying overhead, and quite low. I was outside with Abby when I saw it coming from over in the direction of the neighbor's barn. (Sadly, our neighbor Buddy - real name "Jax" - is now gone. It's sad not seeing him anymore. He's such a friendly dog. His Daddy moved out a few weeks earlier and had a friend looking in on him. During one of those days he got out of their yard, so it's really lucky that Mom saw him. Our guess is someone looked at their house that day and didn't lock the gate behind them. He certainly knew how to entertain himself without his master there though. Next door to him a house is being built, and one of those days a few plastic bags blew into his yard. For quite some time Buddy/Jax joyfully ran around the yard with one of the bags. Lol!)

Also, the other day a huge vulture kept circling our yard and landing on the fence. (I missed seeing it though, and like Mom says... why bother going to the zoo when you live here? Lol!)











Poor raccoon! (This is the first one I've seen here. At first we were concerned it was another rabid critter, but it just looked scared to me).

And speaking of critters, we've been hearing lots of owls lately. (And tons of bull frogs. Goodness they're loud and sound weird). I love hearing them, but at the same time I worry about it because of all our birds.

What's neat is that Mom actually saw it! Every night she enjoys looking at the stars from her bedroom window. While doing that Wednesday night, one of them flew right in front of her face, inches from the window. It then landed in our tree.

After that, she came into my room to tell me about it so we stood outside for a bit listening to the owls calling to each other. It was so neat!