Little Owls

As gardeners we must always consider the wildlife around us. It's always there whether we are dealing with it trying to destroy our gardens or enjoying it because we have made our little piece of the planet a little better for it.

And retailers are always coming out with new products to get our money because they know we deal with nature or enjoy it. I look at some new products and just have to wonder if it will work or not. Well here's one you don't have to worry about whether it works or not. You can buy these or you can build them with only basic carpenter skills. It is the owl house for the little Screech Owls. My brother-in-law, Michael, built this one several years ago and put it in his back yard. The owls were in it almost immediately and have come back every year since and have raised a brood every year. These pictures were taken with a game camera set in an adjacent tree. This is the same camera I was able to catch photos of the coons that were getting into my bird seed that was in an earlier post.

He sent me a lot of pictures and it appears that Screech Owls just sit at the entrance a lot.

Here you can see one's wing as it flew right in front of the camera.



Here the male has brought a lizard or frog and is tearing it up for the little female.

Freeze tonight

It looks like we are going to get a freeze tonight. It is supposed to be right at freezing in Austin and we are usually a few degrees lower than they are. Being a long time gardener, you learn to deal with it. I have saved large pieces of plastic and wraps for bundled material, so that I can cover the beds of row type crops. I use buckets and flower pots for the individual plants like tomatoes and peppers. You can't forget to put a rock over the hole in the pot though.

So come on frost, I am so ready.

Lady Monster

I was in Liberty Hill this week and remembered to take a picture of a Lady Banksia rose that I look for every year at bloom time. It is a monster, climbing completely over an old house. It is so thick you can't even see the house except for the very peak. There are blooms numbering, literally in the thousands. If you get up this way you can see it right across the tracks from the Hobo Depot cafe in the middle of town.

The Spanish Dagger blooms

Twelve days ago Lyn came in to tell me the Spanish Dagger at the property corner was starting to bloom. I had dug this plant up on the Marshal Ranch close to Lago Vista about ten years ago. I had asked Mr. Marshal if it was okay and he said to take as many as I wanted. I dug up two little ones about a foot in diameter, getting a goodly amount of roots with both. I planted one along the driveway and the other a few feet away from a corner marker of our property. As there is no fence on that side I thought it would always let me know where the pin was located. The property next door has been surveyed twice since then. Both times I've been lucky enough to see them start working. I told them where the pin was to save them time looking and gave further instructions to not hack my Dagger as by then it had gotten much larger.

In only ten years the Dagger has grown to over ten feet high, and is over eight feet wide and has developed two heads. I've never tried to trim it or make it look nicer like some do. It can't be seen from the house but I always like to see it bloom. It can be quite spectacular.

Here is a picture of the bloom head just twelve days ago.

Four days later.

Four more days later.

And finally, today.

My NPSOT garden tour

This past weekend the Williamson Co. chapter of the Native Plant Society came to tour my gardens and take a stroll on the Army Corp of Engineers land that is just through my back gate. I really didn't have much blooming in my gardens yet, just the trailing Rosemary and a few Iris. However, they were very interested in the combos of natives and non-natives in the garden as well as all the rock work my wife and I have done around our ponds and gardens.


Our walk through the woods on the Corp land did turn up some early bloomers as well as other points of interest. It was a good time and I learned some new things about several plants. There are some very knowledgeable people on native plants in the club.

Nice solution for a sticky subject

I was driving on CR 200 just north of Liberty Hill a few days ago and spied some big blooms at a driveway entrance. I knew nothing should be blooming of that magnitude now so I just had to turn around and check it out. It turned out to be a rather artsy way of dealing with Century Plant thorns close to where the kids wait for the school bus. I've never cared for the way some people plant an Agave or a Yucca and then lop off the thorns so no one will get stuck. It just makes the plant look bad. It seems they should have planted it elsewhere.

These looked like they should have been on my Sisters street in south Austin as they just have that south Austin flair to them. Very innovative.

Oak wilt and Oak decline

I drove down to the river the other day to get some big rocks for a walkway we were building. I was on the Burkett Ranch. My friend Andy lets me get all the rocks I want and sometimes even helps me using their backhoe. He also loads me up with dirt when I need it. Yeah, I know, I'm one lucky guy. As I was driving through the ranch I was both amazed and saddened by the huge live oaks that were on the ranch. Although there are hundreds of acres of beautiful big live oaks there were also an equal amount of dead and dying oaks as well. It's such a shame that trees older than our country can be killed by tiny bugs and parasites. I get a sad on that lasts for days after seeing this.

I also saw this flock of wild turkey gobblers running through the dead limbs. I love watching turkeys. They are not too bright but they are really majestic looking. There isn't any hunting for turkeys on the Burkett Ranch as they are Mr. Burkett's pride and joy. They come right up to his house to feed in the evenings before they go to roost. That man loves his turkeys.

More critters and varmints

Now that all the "less than desirables" are out of the way, I will show the other animals that we have seen in our gardens this year. This was an extraordinary year for seeing animals at our place. I think it was because of the drought conditions. Well, that and we have five ponds and a new bog garden, so that there is water for the wildlife. I did notice, after we built our first little pond, the immediate increase in bird life. I think every gardener should have a water feature, if for no other reason than to provide water for the birds and other animals. But water features do give a new array of plants to grow as well.

With ponds you can expect to have frogs, and we have frogs. Lots of frogs. Leopard frogs, little creek frogs and even an occasional bull frog. It can be loud at night with several different kinds of frogs peeping and croaking.



Add in the twitter of the Screech owls, a hoot hoot of the Great Horned owls and the weird sounds of the Poor Wills Widow and it's noisier than a honky tonk parking lot.

My friend Andy almost always has his camera with him, and it's a good thing he does. While visiting one day, a Great Horned Owl flew in and lit. Andy just had to raise his camera and click. The picture of a lifetime. It's really stunning in the original format with more pixels. Just look at those eyes.


My wife noticed this little Screech Owl on an old shed one day so I decided to take some pictures. When I went inside to look at them, none were any good. I went back for more and another good friend, Steve Slevin drove up. He is an excellent photographer so I asked him to take some pictures. Of course, his were great. This owl stayed almost all day and would let us get very close.


I spied a Road Runner at the pond and talked Steve into taking its picture as well. By the time he changed lens, the Road Runner was about to leave. But not before Steve got one picture.


Every gardener has a compost pile and I have a couple as well. They are simple, just having cattle panels around them. The coons and the possums are always getting in them to eat the kitchen scraps. The raccoons are too fast to get pictures of but I was able to get a picture of this mama possum with one little baby on her back. Possums have as many as 21 babies but only 14 will make it as they only have 14 teats. When born, all will fit in a table spoon as they are that small. They must crawl to the pouch and attach to a teat to survive. The ones that don't make it to a teat don't survive. I don't know what happened to the rest of this one's brood but she only has one left. I don't mind possums too much except when melons or cantaloupes are getting ripe. They will eat them all if you let them. I put home made cages over the ones that are getting ripe to keep them from getting them.

Along with the possums we have our share of raccoons as well. Here is a game cam picture of one of the little thieves getting into the deer corn.


I love all animals. I love watching them. I like the idea of animals being able to live around me and me not getting in the way of their lives. But, and it's a big but, I constantly have to do things so that they do not ruin my gardening as well. The one that has given me the most grief is the armadillos. I have gone to great lengths to keep them out of my gardens. But, every year it seems there has to be one that figures out how to get in and make my gardening life a living hell. This one was rooting his merry way through a my zinnias and May Night sage. I used my usual removal technique. I scooped him up with a large dip net and hauled him down the road, possibly to be some one else's problem. But probably not, as no one close by gardens.

I found this little guy in the driveway on Christmas day. I gently picked him up and moved him into the trees before one of the soon to arrive vehicles could run over him or one of the dogs would get him. It is a Deer mouse I think. These little guys are always very tame when I find them. I find where they chew on vegetables from time to time but it never bothers me much. They have a short life span and they are like popcorn to any predator. I have no idea why I would have any because of all the snakes we have but I do see them from time to time. They are not like the mice you see in town. These are very clean. They don't live in groups like town mice and do not carry diseases.


Like any one living in the country we have deer, lots of deer. I like having deer but have taken the precautions needed to coexist amicably with them. We see them every day and know the differences in them and know their individual traits. And yes, some have been given names. This is Big Boy. He is not only the biggest but also the tamest. I don't want them to be too tame but it is nice to have some that hang around when we have visitors and not leave. But we must face reality. Our back fence is the Corp of Engineers boundary and they allow bow hunting. So,there is the chance that one may not come back. Big Boy has been with us about three years now and we anxiously await his return from his yearly wanderings in his quest for does. Let's all hope he makes it.I debated on whether to post this next picture or not. I even talked it over with my wife. I decided to post it. This is a picture of Betty. She was the queen of our deer. She had triplets one year and always had at least twins. Most people don't realize that, like humans or dogs or any species, there are good mothers and bad mothers. In deer the bad mothers just can't seem to get their fawns to adulthood. Consequently they cannot build a family group with which to bond with. Therefore, they will always be low on the pecking order and get treated badly by other deer and not get to prime feeding places. Betty was a great mother. She always raised her fawns. Consequently she had a large family group made up of daughters, granddaughters and all their offspring as well. Last summer Betty was killed by a car. They must have been going too fast and it was probably at night because it was in a straight open stretch of road just down from our gate. The saddest part was both of her fawns were killed as well. I can't even imagine how a driver was unable to see three deer in the road at one time. I hope their car was torn all to bupkis and they had a high repair bill so that maybe they learned to slow down a little. It could just have easily been kids and he wouldn't have seen them either.


Out of all the animals we have here, the next one is the only one that gives me any real concern. I put up my game cam to get pictures of the nighttime animals. I got this picture of a coyote. I know a lot about coyotes and that is why it bothers me some. It is really close to my house. I know coyotes have a place in nature. They are the smartest and most cunning animal in the woods. But they are opportunist and will kill and eat anything they can, including cats and dogs.

We hear them howling and yapping in the woods up and down the river behind the house all the time. But I didn't think they would get this close to the house. I look at this as a common criminal snooping around just casing my place for a future crime. Coyotes very seldom get over 45 lbs, with most being much smaller. I walked my Blue Lacy dog in front of the camera the next day to get a size comparison. Bonnie weighs 52 lbs. This is a very big coyote. After this I go outside at night when I let the dogs out to do their business.



That's about it for the animals from last year. I hope ya'll enjoyed seeing the pictures as much as we enjoyed seeing the animals.