Thief caught on film

I've read on several other blogs where people were having raccoon problems. I have them as well. They can clean out a not quite ripe plum tree over night. My peaches are on their favorites list as well. I was able to break them of that by putting wire rings around my fruit trees and hooking them to an electric fence charger for pets. It worked very well.

Lately the little varmints started getting into the buckets that we keep our deer feed corn in. We keep it in 5 gallon buckets with a screw on lid. They would turn over the buckets and roll them around the yard till the top would come off. I was able to get some different buckets with screw on lids that had a little latch that had to be held open while you screwed the lid open. That stopped the problem---for about a week. They wouldn't even roll these around, they would just be open. I just had to know how they were getting into these new buckets. In my mind I could see one holding the bucket still, one holding the latch open and a third unscrewing the lid. They just couldn't be that smart. I had to know.

I put out a game camera pointed at the buckets. The game camera takes a picture when something moves in front of it, waits ten seconds and takes another, waits ten second and takes a third. After the third it rests for a minute and if something is moving starts the sequence again.

This sequence shows the coon on the table with the lid in his mouth, then peeling the top off, and finally getting the goodies.

I have no idea how this little coon can pry that lid off with it's mouth like it does. I tried to pull it off with my fingers and couldn't do it. These lids are pretty stout.

On this night there wasn't much of a mess made but some nights it can be really bad with corn strewn everywhere. It does eventually get cleaned up by the Cardinals and the dreaded tree rodents, the squirrels.

This picture is another night where a real mess was made as they turned the bucket over.

My dog smelling where the little varmints have been.

And the camera catches me doing what? The clean up, of course.

I finally had to resort to the electric wire again. Problem solved in just a few nights. I put the buckets on the table to make sure my dogs didn't get into the hot wire. If the coons are a problem at your place, I highly recommend the hot wire as a solution.

Bad year

I so wish this year would be over. I've been trying to think of what, or who, I have done wrong to get this much bad luck. I'm not a big believer in karma but that could all change.

I just got an inch of rain so it was time to get the winter garden in. I went to McIntyres Nursery and bought some red cabbage, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, and lots of cauliflower. I love cauliflower.

And wouldn't you just know it, my little Ryobi roto tiller wouldn't start. Heck, the rope wouldn't even pull. I took the plug out and the cylinder was full of gas. A mechanic friend looked at it and declared it toast. I ordered the best of the mini tillers, a Mantis. It came in but I haven't had a chance to use it. So, why am I miffed you ask?

Well, you may remember early in this drought cursed summer my well went out. It wasn't long after that the air conditioner went out. I was able to decipher the electrical code on the AC and fix it myself fairly cheap but we had to endure several 100 degree days with no AC. It was better than the nearly four grand that the well cost. Life looked good again, water and AC, all the essentials of life in Texas. Wrong. Then my welding machine on my truck burnt up a circuit board. Not a cheap board either. This is one of the machines that I make my living with. It was fixed promptly and I might add, quite costly.

OK, all the essentials and making money again, life is good. Not. Then the computer starts doing funny things. Then the funny things start becoming not so funny things and the truth becomes evident. It is not long for this world. And as every body knows when you buy a new computer---you upgrade. I didn't like the sound of that. You got it, more money. Uh, wait a minute, no computer-no blog! "Honey, let's go get a new computer, the biggest, the baddest, the fastest one we can find". Yeah, life is good again. And then we got rain. Wahoo, yippee, we got rain. Now I can finally plant me some more plants. I can have a garden again. Let me get that little roto-tiller out and get some raised beds all ready and plant me some plants. And that is when the tiller went down. I should be in a state of depression. But I'm not. I got home this evening after a really hard day of building pipe horse pens and my absolutely amazing wife had tilled up several beds with the new tiller and planted all the winter veggie's that I had bought. Looking down off the porch at all the new plants in the finely tilled beds made me all happy inside.

Looking down at those plants, I knew that life was good again. Or had it ever not been. A few trials to test your meddle can be a good thing. While everything had been going wrong, life was still good for us. My wife had to endure no running water for a couple of weeks, no AC for a while, no computer [she needs the computer, I just play on the computer] and a little tightening of the purse strings for a bit. And all that with no complaints.

It reminded me of something my Mother told me when I told her I was going to ask Lyn to marry me. She told me that she thought Lyn was the right one, but I had to know she was the right one. Because life with the right one would always be good but life with the wrong one would be hell.

I'm back to a new computer, back to the blog again, got some new plants started, I can smell a new loaf of homemade bread, fresh out of the oven, and my wife told me she loves me before she went to bed. Again, I think Mom was right, life's not just good now, it's always been good.

Kissing Bugs

I was writing a draft for this blog and had stopped to think [it's harder than it used to be] and a kissing bug walked across the desk to my hand and started up my fingers. I was able to scoop it into a Scotch tape dispenser and go get my camera for pictures. I thought a warning was in order as most people know nothing of it's insidious nature.

Kissing bugs usually crawl onto the victim while they sleep and bore holes in them and suck or lick the blood out. If you find a row of three to six little red spots on your body and slight itching in the morning, they are probably the cause. You wont lose much blood but there are possible side effects.

When a Kissing bug sucks enough blood to fill itself up it turns around and poops right where it was eating. As the bite starts to itch and you start to scratch and rub the poop into the wound you could contract a disease called Chagas. Chagas is a horrible and debilitating disease that can take up to twenty years to kill you. And, the worst part, there is no cure.

Fortunately, it is very rare here in the states. However it is rampant in central and south America. I read where as many as ten million people could have it. There has been only a few cases of it in Texas and most of those people have been out of country before.

However, a customer of mine that lives down the road, and used to run a hunting ranch in south Texas, has had to put down sixteen of her hunting dogs that have contracted it. They traced it back to illegal aliens that worked on the ranch. The medical officials don't know how the dogs contracted it but think that there may be other ways to contract the disease. A&M University is helping her out with this and has tested over twenty of the bugs that she has caught on her place all with negative results. You can Google this for more information. I thought I would pass this along.

Art at Hill Country Natives

Hill Country Natives nursery is having their annual open house this month. They have invited several artists that do some work that would fit into the house, yard or garden. And, well, I've been invited. I think it's pretty cool. I've never thought of myself as an artist. Maybe a welder with an imagination, but an artist, I don't know about that. I have built some pretty cool stuff. I do work for a bunch of interior decorators. I have items in an artsy kind of store or two. I have been commissioned for several items. I don't know, maybe I could be an artist.

I must admit that I don't like the title that much. I've always thought of artists as people too lazy to get real jobs. But I could be wrong. I truly don't like art for art's sake. The Mona Lisa would have been better if it had been painted on a door. You gotta have a door, you might as well have an interesting looking door rather than a plain one. But the painting accomplishes nothing but to just hang there, a woman with a grin like she just broke wind and she's thinking no one knows.

Useful art I can agree with. That's what I build. If you need a table, I'll build you a table that well may be a work of art. Curtain rods, every one needs curtain rods, you might as well have beautiful curtain rods. Whether it's a bench to sit on or a wine rack for your favorite merlot, it's better to have a one of a kind, beautiful piece than run of the mill and mundane. That is useful art. So, I might be a kinda, sorta, artist.

















Although I must admit that while dragging pipe through fresh horse poop to build corrals the other day I didn't feel like an artist. Oh well, you do what makes you a living. It's a real job.

A good fishing trip

I took a break the other afternoon and went fly fishing at Jack Long Falls outside of Kingsland on the Llano River. It's such a beautiful place with granite boulders sticking up out of the river and clear cool water running over the granite sand bottom. The fishing was slow but the scenery more than made up for it. There were quite a few wild flowers blooming in the heat and my fishing buddy fished away as I checked out the more interesting plants on the bank.

With the extra moisture in the ground on the river banks there were plants blooming that normally don't bloom now. Some just looked great and I thought I would share.

Lazy Daisy

Scarlet Gentian

Brown Eyed Susan [I think]

Drummond Phlox

I found this magnificent Trumpet Creeper or Cross Vine, I'm not sure which. It was truly stunning growing up an old dead Willow tree and the orange color could be seen from a long way off. I wanted it badly.

On the way back to the truck I climbed the bank to see what might be blooming on higher ground and came upon a huge field of Snow on the Prairie. Growing as thick as it was made it quite dramatic.
My fishing partner was wading his way back down stream, oblivious to my wanderings about, looking at the plant life. He was still casting his fly as I sat on the bank throwing twigs in the water and watching the Longear Sunfish come up to inspect them. Although a great friend and an all around decent person, I realized that although we were both fishermen I was an outdoorsman and he was just a fisherman. I have hunted and fished my whole life and have many friends, almost all who hunt and fish, but I am the only true outdoorsman that I know. They know of the animals they hunt and the fishes they pursue but that is the extent of their outdoor knowledge. They have no desire to learn more about nature than what they need to know. I have had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of nature my whole life. I can't stand to move through nature and not know about the birds, the animals and the plants around me. So my little wild flower tour was great fun, a learning experience and very enjoyable.

When I got to the truck I learned that my friend hadn't caught very many fish. He thought it too hot and that we wasted our evening as the fish were not biting that well. I thought of the flowers I had seen and the pictures I had captured and knew it was only a wasted trip if you were a fisherman and not an outdoorsman.

The two Acanthus

A friend gave me a Flame Acanthus earlier this year thinking I would like it as I use a lot of natives in my gardens. I thanked her and said yes I would, not mentioning I already had a huge one and had to pull up dozens of volunteers every year. It was a good size and I decided to plant it right next to the other. I thought that spot needed more bush and two would work just fine.

The original bush bloomed right on time, drawing hummers by the score. The second, nary a bloom. I thought it might be a dud, and yes I believe in dud plants as I've had several. Well low and behold the other started to bloom just as the first was beginning to fade. The blooms also seemed to be an intense red instead of the orange color of the original and the petals were shorter and fuller as well. I certainly didn't see anything wrong with this, more blooms over a longer period, great. The hummers certainly didn't mind as they are still working it over. After their initial flush of blooms they have both bloomed sporadically all summer long, not bothered by the heat in the least. Now that's a good plant for Texas.

The original plant is on the right, orange and spindly blooms and the new one is on the left. My curiosity was piqued and I wanted to know why the difference. I went to Mitch Mitchlamore at Texas Natives. He is mainly into native trees but he knows a lot about most native plants. He thinks the orange one is actually the true native and the other has been changed for nurseries to sell as the color is more vibrant.

I dug the original on a friend's ranch in the far southwestern edge of the hill country so I know it is a true native. Now Mitch wants all the volunteers as he has been unable to find a supplier. As any true gardener would I'm potting them for him as fast as I find them.

And with that another garden mystery has been solved-I think.

Be careful out there

You never know when you will find danger in the garden. I was reminded this week and last.

With this dry, hot weather the wild life moves more as water as well as food is harder to find. With ponds, I realize that the water that is here is home to many frogs and draws birds, mice, rats and other small wild life. All of these things are way down on the food chain so I am always on the alert for the animals that eat them. While pulling up dead plants I found one of those animals. No real danger to me but maybe to my wife or the dogs.



It is a Coral snake and I used to catch them by hand all the time as a kid and sell them to a professor for the research they were doing on making an anti venom. When he found out we were catching them by hand he wouldn't buy any more. We were never bit but we had a friend who was bitten while gardening. She said it was very painful but Coral snake bites are usually not considered life threatening.

A couple of weeks ago my younger brother was bitten by a Copperhead while on the back porch. My older brother and his wife took him to the closest hospital, I think it was Gonzalles. Copperhead bites aren't considered life threatening, so no one was too concerned. But after getting a dose of anti venom David just kept getting worse. They had to helo him to San Antonio to find out what was wrong. This was at midnight and he didn't get out of intensive care till 2:00 the next day.Through testing they found that he was diabetic.[he didn't know] That bite would have killed him if they hadn't found out and started an insulin IV. So for some any snake bite can be deadly.

Night time flowers

I was in the garden the other night, just poking around, looking at the bugs that were working for me in the slightly cooler temps and I noticed that the Daturas had decided to bloom again. The whole of the plant looked quite pathetic but the blooms were as gorgeous as ever. The aroma was heavenly and had that whole corner of the garden infused in nasal delight. I just had to take pictures.

Some were completely open and others were just opening up.

You can see in the background that the leaves are perky and standing out well. The next morning at around 10:00 the plant looked almost like it wouldn't make the day as the heat had already climbed.