Look who is ATOP THE LEADERBOARD of the local sports radio station bracket in Austin! Not to brag or anything lol. RCJH

I didn't know that DP wasn't playing until right before tip off and honestly thought we were just going to be over powered, but for the final 6+ minutes I was standing in front of my tv and seeing how wrong I had been. I thought our HEART, more than anything, was going to be the deciding factor and boy did they show it. What a memorable game, intense feeling, so much pride and giddy happiness all rolled up in one! So proud of the team. I haven't see Coach that happy since Muck Fizzou! We deserve all of these emotions considering what we saw the last few years. The chip is back @drgnslayr !!! #RockChalkJayhawk

Now I know why our band was wearing his Jersey!!

KU's Samis Calderon is not here for the first round game. His dad passed away and he traveled back to be with his family. Dad's name was Luis Calderon and he lived in El Paso.

My shirt today and my #Jayhawks quilt.

Did you ever ponder how one miniscule aspect of life has such a great impact on our planet? I have and still do.Thought of what Jaybate would have added to the conversation. I love, love, love Sir David Attenborough and what he has done for our planet...making us aware that all life is connected and we have to care for it. I used to watch a PBS show with Marty Stouffer called Wild America back in the early 80's as well as Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler on Wild Kingdom. Mike situated the string lines for our house 3 different ways in order to sit the house between the trees so that we only had to take one out when we built the house. He had a wide knowledge for outdoor living and so we camped out a lot here and made our plans. We bought our first 2 lots on a contract for deed basis and paid $75 a month for each lot beginning in 1981 and saved our money while living in a dump $150 duplex in Central Austin. We started the house in Sept. of 84 and moved in 4 months and 2 days later, on our wedding anniversary. He put up the 40' x 60' metal building all by himself (with the help of a crane) in 2009. All the other outbuildings he would draw out, we'd go over it, and then one day I would come home from work and it would be done!

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!!! I was a sophomore in high school in Leavenworth in 1970 when the first Earth Day was celebrated. I remember Robert Redford being a big part of this endeavor to wake people up about the connection we all have to making sure our planet is happy, healthy and keeping the environment rather than paving everything with asphalt and concrete. Robert used to vacation in Austin as a young boy and was in awe of the Barton Springs pool, which is fed by a natural spring. He narrated a documentary on it and the activists that were demanding construction be limited at the Spring's beginning started a years long fight by the Citizens of Austin to protest the development upstream by a "less than caring individual", Jim Bob Moffat, who with all his money thought he could rape the land to gain a profit. At a City Hall hearing that went on for over 24 hours, the City of Austin denied his development permit and the Springs were saved. From time to time they have to close it due to runoff from the other developments that were allowed upstream and it is a never ending fight to keep the Springs healthy. It's a constant 68 degrees and people swim in it year round, even in winter, and it is a shock to your system when you jump in on a 100 degree day! There is a salamander that is on the threatened species list and a cave cricket that was also found and were able to declare it a federally protected habitat. One of our clients owned a 2,700 acre ranch where the headwaters for Barton Springs began and I got to help the ranch owners protect their land with conservation easements with the City of Austin and The Nature Conservancy, whereby their land will never be sold for commercial development and is monitored yearly for control burns, hunting, grazing and wildflower restoration. Each year this family had an open house and Mike and I went to several, which included hiking to the beginning of the Springs and seeing the flora and fauna. Just breathtaking. We all can do our part to keep what we have before it is too late. That's why I plant so many polinator flowers. My wild sunflowers are a haven for the migrating Monarchs and this year I didn't even pull up the dandelions because before all the spring flowers have bloomed, the dandelion is one of the few plants out there when the bees need it the most.

@approxinfinity Glad to hear!!!! I have been battling a tough cold and just now feel better. Missed all of you.
MERRY CHRISTMAS KUBUCKETS!

Today's photo is a varigated form of the Helianthus annuus "Ring of Fire" (Common Sunflower). It's a striking sunflower variety, with large flowers, 5 inches across, boasting a unique pattern of fiery red and gold petals surrounding a dark center. Ideal for adding bold contrast to gardens, it reaches maturity in about 70-80 days and is a magnet for pollinators. They grow in a raised bed in the corner of my garden.

This caught my eye!

Today's photo is of a sotol that Mike brought back from the deer lease he went to down in very south Texas, in the desert. The three that he transplanted bloomed last year for the very first time. It was something to see.
Sotol
Dasylirion texanum
Agavaceae Family

This spiny evergreen plant was an important food staple for the native peoples in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands and adjacent areas of the western and southern Edwards Plateau. Native peoples also made use several other sotol species that can be found to the west across much of the Chihuahuan Desert in northern Mexico and the southern part of the American Southwest. The pulpy central stems or "hearts" of sotol plants were baked and then pounded and formed into chewy patties which could be dried and stored. This carbohydrate food source was probably a mainstay in areas where sotol grew in abundance.

Sotol is a evergreen rosette plant, with long spine-clad leaves that attach in a series of circular tiers around a shortened, central stem. Although sotol is sometimes called a "cactus" or an "agave," it is neither. Some botanists today classify it a member of the Nolinaceae family, like beargrass, while others place sotol in the Agavaceae family (e.g., Powell 1998), along with the true agaves such as lechuguilla. The tough fibers from sotol leaves were used for making mats and twine and its woody flower stalk was valued as a straight, lightweight wood useful for many tasks. Sotol seeds are also edible, and have been recovered from coprolites (preserved human feces) analyzed from dry caves in the Lower Pecos archeological region.

Weaving and basketry. Sotol leaves are an ideal material for weaving mats, trays, burden baskets, tumplines, and general purpose baskets (Andrews and Advasio 1980; McGregor 1992). Preparation of the leaves for weaving is simple. The leaf is either utilized whole, or split into narrow strips. In some cases, the marginal teeth (spines) are removed before the leaf is woven into a mat. In other cases the leaves with the marginal teeth intact are woven into the basket or mat. In a comprehensive study on basketry of the region, McGregor (1992) identified sotol in mat and basket fragments. Often sotol was woven into baskets with other materials, including yucca fibers or strips of yucca leaves, agave fibers, or grass fibers.

Food. The plant's central stem is very fleshy or pulpy, and serves as a storage organ, containing both moisture and carbohydrates. The central stem, often referred to as the “heart,” is edible, but only after it is baked in an earth oven for 36-48 hours. The very long cooking time is needed to break down indigestible long-chain carbohydrates and poisonous compounds, mostly saponins, which are a combination of a sapogenin, a steroid compound, and a sugar, usually glucose. The heat and steam generated by an earth oven, however, breaks down complex carbohydrates, splits the sugars from the steroidal compounds, breaks down the compounds, and leaves the pulpy central stem edible. Usually the cooked, fleshy pulp was pounded into thin patties and sun-dried. If kept dry, baked sotol patties can remain edible for months: chewy, but sweet and nutritious. It tastes like nutty molasses syrup.

Most researchers associate agave use throughout the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts of northern Mexico and the adjacent American Southwest (including west Texas) with earth oven processing. It is, however, increasingly evident that both sotol and yucca were utilized as important food sources in the Edwards Plateau region. For example, San Angelo (or narrow-leaf) yucca [Yucca reverchonii], a plant with an inedible fruit, was identified from deposits at Baker Cave (Brown 1991). Both yucca and stool have been identified in abundance from Hinds Cave (Dering 1999). When baked in an earth oven the central stem of San Angelo and other related yuccas is edible and can be prepared much like sotol.

It is very likely that sotol and yucca were among the main food resources that were routinely cooked at many archeological sites in the western and southern Plateaus and Canyonlands. Over time, this process results in the accumulation of “burned rock middens,” the highly visible, common, and easily identified prehistoric site feature in the region. Archeologists have recovered charred sotol and/or yucca fragments (leaf sections) from burned rock midden sites on the Edwards Plateau, such as the Honey Creek site. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for paleobotanists (specialists who identify plant remains from archeological sites) to tell the difference between sotol and yucca from small charred fragments. Therefore, most of what we know about sotol and yucca use comes from the dry caves of the Lower Pecos area.

One fascinating account of sotol baking comes from The Life of F. M. Buckelew: The Indian Captive, As Related by Himself (1925). Buckelew was captured as a 14-year-old boy by Lipan Apaches in 1866 near what is today Utopia, Texas on the Sabinal River. He lived with the Lipan for about a year in the western Edwards Plateau and further west in the Big Bend area before he escaped. His account describes in detail the preparation of the sotol "bulb" or central stem, in earth ovens. He describes large quantities of the sotol being cooked in a "kiln" covered with earth to make it airtight. The heated rock, he said, cooked the bulbs, which were then made into "bread."
This is what the base looks like. The next one is the bloom that was at least 12' high.

I also follow the sun. FYI:

I have had this photo from Apollo as my background on every computer, laptop and phone ever since I could remember. I have always been fascinated by space exploration and could happily watch NASA TV (before it became a subscription channel) and learn something new every time. I remember the moon landing...and to this day I get updates on when the International Space Station is flying over and I will get up and go outside to watch it. Mike and I would sit outside at night during meteor showers and just be in awe. We have had solar eclipse parties and camp outs for people who had never really seen the sky. We watch the phases of the moon by glancing up at night from my balcony deck and we can see Venus and Jupiter right now low in the western sky. We are learning to use the telescope and can zero in on specific areas of the moon. I was a Carl Sagan fan long before it was cool! He awakened something in me that gave me my overall view and sense of where we are all on this "pale blue dot".

Today's photo is of a Golden-Cheeked Warbler that visisted my bird bath. As you can see from their description below, they are Endangered, and my properties are the perfect habitat for them and is a big point in my protesting my real estate tax increases, year after year, especially since other properties around mine have been stripped bare of their critical habitat. I was so lucky to get these pictures, you don't know. Below is from Texas Parks and Wildlife site.

Texas Status: Endangered
U.S. Status: Endangered, Listed 5/04/1990
Description
Adult Golden-cheeked warblers reach a length of 4.5 inches.
Life History
Golden-cheeked warblers nest only in central Texas mixed Ashe-juniper and oak woodlands in ravines and canyons. Warblers eat insects and spiders found on the leaves and bark of oaks and other trees. They use long strips of cedar bark and spider webs to build their nests. They come to Texas in March to nest and raise their young, and leave in July to spend the winter in Mexico and Central America. Females lay 3-4 eggs during nesting season. Of the nearly 360 bird species that breed in Texas, the Golden-cheeked Warbler is the only one that nests exclusively in Texas.
Habitat
Woodlands with tall Ashe juniper (colloquially "cedar"), oaks, and other hardwood trees provide habitat for the golden-cheeked warbler.
Distribution
Distribution of the Golden-cheeked Warbler (Setophaga chrysoparia)In Texas, golden-cheeked warblers are found in the Edwards Plateau and locally north to Palo Pinto County.
Other
Golden-cheeked warblers are endangered because many tall juniper and oak woodlands have been cleared to build houses, roads, and stores. Some habitat was cleared to grow crops or grass for livestock. Other habitat areas were flooded when large lakes were built.

Today's photo shows not only the sentiment shown on the cup but also the delphiniums picked from the garden earlier this spring, before a storm was coming. I would rather they re-seed in the garden. Where does the name delphinium come from?
With a little imagination, you can see that the buds of the flower look like dolphins . Hence the name delphinium, the Latin word for dolphin. If you already have delphinium in your garden, you can use the seeds from it. When your delphinium has finished flowering, wait until the seed capsules are completely dry. If you hold them upside down, the seeds will fall out. Store them in a paper bag in a dry, cool place and sow them next spring.

My photo of the praying mantis was featured in my bug guy's blog today! Pretty cool. He's having a photo contest too at his 4th of July party in Fredericksburg. We are planning to go.

Today's photo shows a Laredo Striped Whiptail checking me out when I was cleaning out the mower and weed eater. There are a number of these that are out during the day. The Laredo striped whiptail mostly relies on insects as their primary food source. They have a lot of energy and move quickly, which lets them hide quickly when they feel threatened. The striped whiptail has a dark green or dark brown body with seven yellow or white stripes. Also, they like to live in places with sandy soil and few plants.

LFG #JAYHAWKS