Nature
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I live near a narrow, but active shipping river, the Calumet. One of my hobbies is looking at my marine traffic app and seeing what's coming. This Oberstar ship is a classic lakes freighter, 800 feet long
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Here's another
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Mike built many of these after seeing something similar at a gun show. He made fold away tables and sold them when he and our neighbor (Bob) went fishing all over east Texas. Bob was the co pilot when Nixon went to China. He knew and had mementos from several astronauts. Played football for Texas A&M and we celebrated with him the day we poured the slab for the house with a bottle of Dom Perignon. A true Texan. He was buried at the veterans cemetery in San Antonio and we went to his funeral.
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Even this toad was trying to get out of the rain this morning. Perhaps he was getting suggestions from his mentor lol.
3-1/2" for us from yesterday and the cove is rising and all the floodwaters of the Pedernales River are going to drain into our lake. Flood gates at 2 damns will be opened soon. Some flooding in the same areas as last 4th of July.
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Flower Friday!
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Lovely!
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@nuleafjhawk We've been blessed with bountiful rain and got these on a walk around the block, kinda getting to the end of the season.
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I'm not much of a plant guy, but .....Indian Paintbrush? Can I still say that?
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Sadly not paintbrush. These are Indian Blanket.
Indian Paintbrush looks like a Bluebonnet, with the blooms being pinkish and reddish instead of blue. -
I salvaged the mammoth sunflowers worth keeping after the stalk fell over from the weight of it. I counted 11 blooms at the top and it was laying down on the ground this morning.
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Back in 2023 I awoke to find the backyard filled with turkey vultures and after getting them to scatter I found this half of a buck underneath them.
Didn't get any closer than this.
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Huh. Wonder what took it down.
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@approxinfinity A human probably, sadly. It wouldn't have been that exact of a cut by a coyote and especially a pack of them. I have heard shots off in the distance every year around the start of November. Wardens were called years ago but there was nothing they could do. We watched someone stop in their truck and cut off the tail of a huge rattlesnake that Mike killed one year and word spread that he had tossed it into a patch of cedars behind our property. They literally cut off the rattles and hooped and hollered. Rednecks from the sleazy part of the lake.
Speaking of the lake, Lake Travis is 106% full. There used to be islands in the middle of this part of the lake. It's at a restaurant overlooking the main basin down from Mansfield Dam. Gates are still open at 4 damns created to be pass throughs and even still down at Tom Miller Dam in Austin. I saw a time lapse from 2019 to present day where Lake Medina went from 8% full to 100% full after the rains. Now with the system in the Gulf of MEXICO, it has the potential to come our way and dump massive amounts of more rain, so
#RCJH GO KU
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@RockChalkinTexas-0 is your property high enough ground to avoid flooding?
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@approxinfinity The lake is full at 681' and is at 684.86' and still rising. Our house sits the highest of anyone at 713 feet above MSL. My oldest neighbor could get water in her basement as she is along the lakefront at 691' if the gulf system moves over us.
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Dang. Glad youre safe.
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ALERT TO @nuleafjhawk
The spider this morning had a big breakfast! It's almost gone now. Saw him with something different yesterday. He's a good companion to have around.
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The girls also do these Diamond Dot art. They were turned on to them when we had our last Solar Eclipse party and a friend's sister-in-law from Seattle who came for the eclipse sent this to the girls as a thank you. Some are frame worthy. This is one of the bigger ones. Most are 9x12. The kit comes with the stylus, glue pads, dots, and a guide. Each one is individually placed on the backing to create the image. It's very time consuming and I bought them each a new magnifyer so they could see the numbers and symbols directing them what to apply. Lots of quiet time spent together by them, each doing one side and meeting in the middle!
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This plant shows the extreme temperatures we've had. It sucked the life out of it. Even so, it is still somehow surviving. It's a very skinny False foxglove (Penstemon cobaea) blooms in April and May across the rolling plains and Blackland Prairie south to the Gulf of Mexico. Also known as prairie penstemon, this showy flower grows best in sandy or rocky open hillsides, limestone outcrops, and loamy soils.
@approxinfinity @nuleafjhawk We found a second banana spider on the back window of the solarium. We have twins!!!!
