Journal

Wallawa Lake is quiet at 6:30 a.m. Only a few fishermen are at the marina, readying their boats, and campers walking their dogs, or, just walking. Like me. I like to sit at a picnic table that juts out toward the water where I can look for the adult eagles and a female common merganser I’ve been watching.

Summer drifted in this week on a wave of heat and humidity. For the most part, June has been up and down in temperature, tempered by frequent rain showers. Some wildflowers are going to seed. At the end of May, the Sierra Nevada trail that was flooded with coneflowers, Indian Blankets and lemon beebalm.

I first saw the filly only hours after she was born, lying in a corner of the shed under Kai’s watchful eye.

Liam has a new buddy. Aubrey’s foal arrived Monday, April 22, sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 a.m. I was riding Willis in the fields behind the barns and paddocks when I saw a long-legged tiny horse standing next to a huge bay mare in the paddock next to last year’s colt and filly. On the other side of the shelter stood another mare with a foal, so there were now two foals.

The titmouse nest sits empty, a few rays of morning sun lighting the moss and twigs and sawdust. If I look hard enough, I can see the tip of a single speckled egg. Or maybe it’s just my imagination.

The first foal of the season came into the world on Monday, April 10, at 2:00 a.m. “Liam” looks just like his mother with a long white blaze from his forehead to his nose. All legs, he toddles alongside Miss Mae, who is never far away.

The ringtail shows up nightly and now there are two! Tim’s sharp eye spotted the difference between two ringtails in photos, but it wasn’t until the trail cam caught two together that we were sure.

A ringtail visits the backyard almost every night, traveling back and forth along the fence from our neighbors’ yard to ours. We keep a small feeder tray filled with orange peels and dried fruit to entice him and birds, but the menu also appeals to a local possum. One night the trail cam caught both possum and ringtail at a standoff as they chased each other down the fence and out of the yard.

February 24, 2019 February 24, 2019            As February fades into March, I am jolted by signs of spring:  paperwhites, irises, a stray black-eyed [...]

Winter comes and goes. The first week of February began with warm mornings in the low 50s, creeping up to high 60s. While the rest of the country faced below freezing temperatures and snowstorms, Central Texas basked in moderate winter weather under cloudy skies.

The owl box is up. It is a fine structure made of cedar and mounted on a high pole to keep squirrels out. Tim painted it a light tan to blend in among the oak trees and the rest of the backyard; it even fits in with the color of the house. So now we wait. A camera inside the box illuminates the inside, but so far the fresh sawdust has not been tamped down, though a titmouse did sit on the perch and peek in.

She is like a black fox; everything from her confirmation to the way she trots instead of walks.

Summer has unofficially begun. The cool mornings of April have warmed to 70º at 7 a.m. and the temperature gradually rises to the high 80s at mid-day, sometimes even 90º. Sunday’s rain cooled us for a while; the evening breezes sooth Daisy and I as we walk through the school yard in the evenings.

Around 8:30 p.m. on May 13, Owlet number 1 has stuffed his fluffy body in the box entrance as his siblings peck at his tail and pull on his feathers, wanting to be where he is, see what he sees.

The owlets are getting ready to fledge.