Rainy Day Hike

After the rain started falling last night, I knew I would have to go hiking today if I wanted to see the moss wet and green. The rain does so much for the forest: it cleans off the plants, pats down the dust on the trail, and brings out the color in all the mosses and leaves.

This tree was covered in a particularly vibrant moss.

Toby Too's Progress

Toby Too is very happy with his new life in the country. He is loving and eager to please.

I love him, too.

The cats still prefer to live in the polytunnel, the log store and the gardens.

As long as they get fed and can assist us with the vegetable gardening

without 'that dog' being around,

they are content,

for the moment.

I am trying to broker peace between them

because

I like all my furry animals under the one roof at night.

The hens occasionally get a little more exercise than normal.

Sometimes Toby just can't resist giving chase.

I'm working on that.

Toby has taken an inexplicable dislike to my brother (Owl Wood).

Toby is not drawn to him, which is very unusual -

I assume he reminds him of someone in his past.

He growls, he barks.

So does Toby.

I'm working on that relationship too.

It is a long list!

A few days ago we began some 'serious' training. I say we, because I have as much to learn as Toby Too. We are using reward based 'clicker' training. He is responding very well and enjoys his training sessions,so do I.I know that the time and effort invested now will pay dividends for the rest of his life.
A friend in the village has agreed to train us. She has over 20 years of experience in dog training and it showsin the ease with which she 'shapes' the behaviour she wants from him.Watching her instruct Toby is like watching a ballet, or reading poetry.He recognises her authority and responds.
Our instructor has twice been asked to represent 'the South' with her agility dogs, at Crufts!

with a lot of success and placements. She knows her stuff.
Toby and I are putting in lots of homework. We don't want to let her down.

The dog shows great promise, shame about his mama!



Wherever I go, Toby follows.

I enjoy gardening, so he enjoys gardening. I love poppies - he says he does too.



Bennie, however, finds all this gardening exhausting.




Spinach and chard are growing well, beans and peas have begun to climb higher.



The gardener in chief is working dawn to dusk.

Problems with my laptop computer have meant that I am way behind on

reading your posts, commenting, etc.

Apologies!

I hope the problem has now been resolved, but if I go quiet....

More Snow

You think I have abandoned my blog - just no riding. Nothing much to report.
The last couple days, I got out to ride. Friday evening was Full Moon Ride. Urgh, the trail was clear/snow covered/icy. The temperature dropped when the sun set. Just not fun riding. I made about 4 miles. Cellar 19 was too crowded and noisy - so I headed home.
Sunday was a nice day. Time to get the bike out and ride. Riverfront trail was slushy to clear & dry. One spot was icy. Rode up almost to N 25th St.
Yesterday, I was a little tired and not sure about riding. But getting that metal between my legs was all it took, and there was not way I could lose a beautiful 55 degree day!. I was ready to ride! When I got to N. 25th, I decided to try riding the "mini" Tour de Bluffs. From N 15th, when down through town, over to S 16th Ave, on to Indian Creek trail. Wheel spray got my butt a little damp and had to walk the bike on the trail connection to the trailer park. Still had a good 14 mile ride.
Good timing. Today dawned cold and windy - 10 degrees and 40 mph winds. Snow (1-2") in the forecast for later today. Spinning @ Xtreme Wheels tonight.

"DIVINE TASKS PERFORMED HERE DAILY"

The above quote is a sign hanging over a housewife's sink proclaiming to all who enter her domain that her daily work is done unto and for the Lord.
My home is a sanctuary; the sink an altar. The food I serve up to my family an offering before the Lord.
If we remembered this throughout the day, how radically would all we come in contact with be changed.

That explains it

We've never had much of a raccoon problem here. I suspected that the coyotes were taking care of that for us.
At first, this picture made me wonder if coyotes carried nesting material! But when I zoomed in and brightened it, and increased the contrast, I saw a little striped tail sticking out of the coyote's jaws. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)
Now, if only I could get them interested in armadillos...

Frustrating Week

Weather has not been conducive to riding - rainy. When not rainy, very windy. But, have been getting in a couple rides. Saturday, the race was canceled from the rain.
Last week (Wednesday) I headed out from the bike shop for a ride on the Trace. When I got to Margaritaville, I was feeling good - so headed on down to Mineola. Was thinking of stopping in Mineola for lunch at the Steak House - but it was already 1:10. So just turned back up the hill.
Stopped just out of town to take this photo - well a "touched-up" version of the photo. This is the Keg Creek bridge.
Uneventful ride back. Had a great, relaxing ride on the hardtail.

My Austin Entomologist

It's been a few months since I made a YouTube for y'all - and November is a month that could use a little comedy. This song fits pretty well with the others in my pipedream of a musical play, "Roots in Austin". It's a song that should be sung by a younger, hot, man-crazy blonde, but since no one else volunteered, once again you get old, not-hot Annie and a piano.
Loralynn is the name of the character who sings this song. She's a girl who starts out focused on the scientist but soon becomes interested in the science.
Conversations with Vertie inspired me to write this Bug Geek Song - and both Vert and Iris helped with photos. I hope it cheers up your November weekend.


This copyrighted song, "My Austin Entomologist ~The Bug Geek Song" was composed and performed by "Annie in Austin" and the video was made by Philo in Austin.
You can find more of our songs at YouTube Station Kaefka.

Blue's True Colors Challenge

Thanks to Blue (http://poopsiestruecolours.blogspot.com/) for suggesting this lyrical challenge, "sung" to a poem by Christina Rossetti.
"What is pink? A rose is pinkBy a fountain's brink.

What is red? A poppy's redIn its barley bed. What is blue? The sky is blueWhere the clouds float thro'.

What is white? A swan is white
Sailing in the light.
(Well... the only "swans" I could find around here)
What is yellow? Pears are yellow,Rich, ripe and mellow.
What is green? The grass is green,With small flowers between.

What is violet? Clouds are violetIn the summer twilight.

What is orange? Why, an orange,
Just an orange!"
Have a nice Tuesday!

Fossil week

Updated: see below.
While posting recently about the rocks here, I mentioned that the red ones often contained plant fossils. By request, here they are.



I'll post more fossil pics later this week and try to come up with some IDs.
These are possibly leaves of Lycopods - Lepidophylloides maybe. Like this and this. The ancient lycopod tree had different types of leaves, and the grass-like ones were called Lepidophyllum. I believe that would put them in the Pennsylvanian period, about 300 million years ago.
But I'm not sure about that. I've never found any more entire leaf impressions than these. So if you know differently please tell me.
They could possibly be from the other clubmoss tree, the Sigillaria, or the horsetail tree, the Calamites. (They are all from roughly the same time period.)
Updated: I found this at the Virtual Paleontology Lab, which explains why the leaves can have a different scientific name than the rest of the plant:

Because we don't always know which leaves belong to which seeds when they are first discovered, we use the convention of form taxa. When organs are found isolated (not in organic connection), each type of leaf and seed is given its own binomial name (genus and species name according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature), without making any assumption about what belongs to what. To use the example discussed by Oliver and Scott (1904), leaves were described as Lyginopteris (genus only for brevity), seeds as Lagenostoma, and stems as Lyginodendron. The similarity of the first syllable gives a hint that the describing paleobotanists (others besides Oliver and Scott) suspected some relationship, but were unable to make a strong inference link. The last syllable of each name gives a hint to the organ type: "dendron" = stem, "pteris" is often used for frond-like foliage, "stoma" = seed. However, after Oliver and Scott's recognition of the unique glands on Lagenostoma lomaxi and species in the other organ form genera, they were able to make the whole-plant link with greater confidence. The whole plant then takes the name of the organ first described, in this case Lyginopteris. When you are writing, take care to make clear whether you are talking about form taxa (organs) or whole-plants.

Also, this is what the globe looked like 300 million years ago. Plate tectonics! Continental drift! Gotta love it.
If I'm right about what these are, the fossils pre-date dinosaurs. Pretty cool.
Here's what it's thought to have looked like around here at that time, more or less. There are modern relatives of some of these ancient plants, such as the plant-rescue ground cedar I tried (unsuccessfully, as it turns out) to transplant here last year.
Sue the T-rex? Sniff. Ho hum. My fossils are older than that. Almost five times older! Now if I could only find somebody to pay me $8 million for them...
-----
P.S. I have learned so much since I started writing this blog - looking all this stuff up so I can pretend like I know what I'm talking about.

I Loves Me Some Hummingbirds

I don't ride much after work. Usually my time is before or during lunch, but yesterday I had a tiny window of opportunity of nothingness around 5pm so I took it. I rode a quick little hour of Pinehurst loop, which when it's really hot is almost like a nice little swim. Lots of pretty trees, deep down in the canyon with some nice pockets of lower temp micro-climates.
While I was riding I thought about my little hummingbirds.
Lately I've been spending time in the garden weeding and stuff. We have a water fall in the back and with it we get lots of little visitors - mostly hummingbirds. They're very talkative. And they like to whip around me when I'm out there low to the ground.
My sister was over the other day and she noticed all the hummingbirds and she snickered and made some comment about how I finally have some of my own hummingbirds.
------------------------------------------
One summer when we were kids, we went on a series of organized Saturday hikes around the Bay with this nature lady called Mrs. Terwilliger. She was famous in our parts. We'd drive out to Marin and meet her somewhere and spend the Saturday hiking and learning about the local plants and animals and marshlands and tide pools and blah, blah, blah.
Lots of families would show up. As a kid it was a great learning experience.

Before we went on each hike as we were arriving, she'd be pulling out all the "animals" from her VW bus, arranging them on the ground. We'd talk about each of the animals that we'd probably see on our hike that day, what they did, how the lived in the environment, blah, blah, blah.
They were the real deal animals. Dead and stuffed. And glued on platforms. We were always a little creeped out by this. But we'd pet them anyway and listen to her stories. And when she was done talking, as we were getting ready to go on the actual hike, we'd help her put them pack in her bus.

One time I stole some of the stuffed hummingbirds. Yanked them right off their wooden platform.
They were so soft and so cute and so still and so dead and as I was helping put the animals into her van I slid them into my coat pocket. And all through the hike I kept my hand in my pocket, petting their soft little fur and holding their soft little bodies.
When we got home, I found a shoe box, wrapped them up in some soft paper towels and put them in and hid them on the top shelf of my closet. Each day I'd pull them out, unwrap them carefully and put them in my pocket and keep them there all day during school, petting them and carrying them in my hands. They were my little friends.
At home I'd wrap them back up carefully and put them in their box for the night. Sometimes I'd pull them out late at night and pet them and look at their dead, stuffed little bodies and their bulging eye balls. I wondered how they'd died. And how they stuffed them. I'd pet their little backs over and over again.
This went on for a few weeks. My own little hummingbirds. I loved them so much.
Until the day my mom was looking for something in my closet and found them. When I came home from school that day, there they were in the kitchen, unwrapped and standing on the counter staring at us as we came in.
Shit.
The hummingbirds sat on top of the fridge for the rest of the week. I saw them every time I went to get something to eat or drink. They were there staring at me.
The next week at the nature walk, I had to bring them back. I wanted to just try and slip them into the van as we were putting the animals away again. I noticed that there were no other hummingbirds. Apparently I'd stolen the only 2 she had.
But my mom had other ideas. So as Mrs. T was setting all the animals up and starting her talk I was forced to raise my hand in front of the entire group of 30 hikers, including a neighborhood family who we were good friends with, and tell Mrs. T that I'd stolen the dead hummingbirds and that I was returning them because stealing was wrong. I walked into the middle of the circle and placed the two birds down next to the other dead birds and walked back to my place in the circle.
I don't even remember what happened next, because of course in that sort of situation you're mortified to even be alive. I'm sure I just closed my eyes and pretended to be back in my room at home petting my stuffed animals.
Jeezus.
To this day, my sister and brother still tease me about it. The time I "stole the stuffed hummingbirds" and carried them around in my pocket, petting them all day and talking to them, calling them George.
And now I watch these little hummingbirds in my backyard and I hear them talking as they buzz around me and I continue to ignore them and go on my merry way.