Moth.

Found this guy in the garage the other day. Nature is awesome. How could something so tiny (well, 4 inches...that's big for a moth) get the most perfect and beautiful camouflage design?

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Here's some color for y'all today...

Sheeeeeeeeeep!!!

Did you know that there are upwards of 40 million sheep in New Zealand? That's 12 sheep for every ONE person. Wild! We saw muddy sheep, baby sheep, fat sheep, pink sheep, blue sheep, (serious, they spray paint them for fun), and only a very few clean white sheep. FYI, the baby sheep are A-dorable. Also in New Zealand are tons of dairy cows, and a few goats. Farm animals galore!

Wild things.

Somewhere along the Great Ocean Road there's a little town called Kennett River, and if you turn off onto Grey River Road be ready for some Australian wildlife run-ins. It's a gravelly, bumpy dirt road that goes through a forest largely made up of Eucalyptus trees. I remember we were driving along the road waiting to see some wildlife and we rounded a curve and there on the side of the road were two kangaroos! I was so shocked to see some, (hey, it was my first kanga sighting!), that I shrieked, "Marsupials!!!!" right into Joy's ear. They must have heard me because they bounded into the woods out of sight before I could get my camera out. We saw a few more groups of them in the distance after that, though too far away for good pictures.

We also managed to find a koala! Koalas are known to be very lethargic, brainless creatures, and I found this to be very true. He only cared for his leaves and the one time he looked up mid-munch to notice the tourists gawking at him, he looked vacant and a little bit confused. After he gave up trying to figure us out, he went back to eating the leaf that was hanging out of his mouth.



On our way back to the main road, some tourist buses had parked at the beginning of the road and some idiot tourists were actually shaking, violently, a tree limb that a koala was resting on. The koala was hanging on for dear life and I'm sure he had to be thinking, "Flipping tourists!!! Go bother a kangaroo!!!" I don't know if they were just hoping to get any response out of the poor thing, or if they were hoping it would flop to the ground and come play with them? I don't know, but it was ridiculous. There was also a group of bright red parrots and one managed to land on a lady's head. Quite funny, and the lady had this, "Soooo, now what?" look on her face. Her friend was taking pictures and laughing.

These kangaroo pictures are from a different day on a different beach, Pebbly Beach close to Sydney. A local hyped it up, so we were expecting to see a lot of kangaroos on this beach, but only ended up seeing two. This kangaroo was real friendly, though I was nervous to be so close because I kept expecting his switch to flip and for him to drop kick me and claw my guts out - never happened. Yes, my imagination ran wild, that's how I roll. He actually let me pet him (very soft and wooly), which annoyed him, as he flinched when I touched him, and he was wondering why I wasn't giving him food, as he kept looking at me expectantly.
The pictures of me with the kanga are courtesy of Brian Barker.

Squirrely Things.

Just in case you were wondering, the squirrels at Pfluger Park are very friendly. They let you get super close. But not close enough to pet.
Aw, nuts.

Kids and a calf.

These are from Easter. There's a new baby calf we're (and by "we", I mean Dad) taking care of over at the barn. We took the kids over to check him out. Little niece didn't want to touch it, but little nephew didn't mind. I haven't named him yet, I usually always name the babies we take care of...Got any suggestions?

Rattlesnake Decapitation.

Photo warning: Guts ahead.

Snake season hath cometh!

Dad and I were moving a rock pile the other day when, once again, he stuck his hand within 5 inches of a rattlesnake. Luckily when he tried to move the rock he kept his hands on the side of it and didn't grab underneath. And luckily, the snake was napping under the rock. Unaware of its fateful dismal end. I told Dad to wait while I ran to get the camera, because that's what I do. When I ran in the house, Mom was all confused to my haste and I informed her of the quasi-excitement and she decided to be a part of the action. You'll see what happened next in the video posted below:

Laying unaware...

Oh. SNAP. The best part is at 1:05 when the actual decapitation happens. The snake flips out and, as you can probably imagine, is not at ALL happy about having a hoe attack its head.

I'm not entirely sure if it's still alive in this shot, but he was still squirming, still showing his fangs to me, so... Yeah.

Now I ask you, where else on the internet can you go from cute Easter niece pictures to gross decapitated rattlesnake heads?

Don't answer that.


Author's Note 4/16/10:
You may have noticed that the video was disabled by YouTube due to "inappropriate content". I received a slap on the wrist, y'all. Apparently YouTube didn't find my "depiction of cruel behaviour" without "educational merit" appropriate for viewing. Okay, pansies. This is Texas. Where I come from, you get the rattlesnake before it gets you. Lesson. Learned.

Honk if you like Canadian Geese!

A couple hundred Canadian Geese flew over my house today! Three separate flocks over the course of the day. I'm glad they keep the same flight path every year because I love hearing the mix of honking they make. I think it's neat because I'll be outside, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I hear them faintly, then a little more clear, and then it's game on for, "Find the Flock of Geese!". For real. I have to look up into the bright sky, which hurts my eyes, and try and find the little buggers. You'd think they'd be easy to spot, but not so, my friends, not so, because all they look like is tiny black specks. And once you've got a fix on them, should you lose sight, it's hard to find them again. Unless, of course, like today, there's a one-hundred and seventy count flock (yes, I counted them in this picture) flying in a triple V. It's kind of hard to miss a giant flock of birds floating through the sky. Jealous?
To get the entire "v" in the shot I couldn't zoom in that much, but if you look hard enough you can see the triple "v" I'm talkin' 'bout. 170 of them! And the crazy part is they can fly in the thousands. Now THAT would be something awesome to see.

Only 62 in this bunch.

And in between geese sightings the dogs and the Mom and I hung out today.

Sophie's ear taking flight.

Sophie being bored while we were doing yard work.

Babe's ears taking flight during a JD Gator ride. Ahhhhh BAT dog!!!

Babe doing her best Scrat impression. You know, the little critter out of Ice Age? I think she looks like him sometimes. The scar on her face is where a snake bit her a few years ago.

Though it doesn't look like it, we're moving, and Babe is helping mom drive.

Yay for fun on the farm!

Newma the cat.

"I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life!!!"

That's what I think the cat is saying. I went up to my cousin's this evening to take some portraits. This is one of the outtakes with one of her daughters holding the cat. Anyway, the cat totally looks like she loves being held like that, right?!

Insert captions here...

No, really. If you could insert a caption, what would it say?

She got very angry when I tried to take it away from her. Apparently she had not licked every last drop.

Another turtle

I was doing dishes yesterday, when I looked out the kitchen window and saw this massive turtle crawling across the front yard. Mom and I went out to inspect and we both came to the conclusion that this was the ugliest turtle we had ever seen. Not that it mattered, because his size and the "I'll bite your hand off if you get near me" look on his face instantly made him cool. I went and got my camera to take some pictures and he put his head as low to the ground as he could, as if to say, "The lower I get, the less you can see me." He never full on retracted into his shell though, which suggests to me that either: (a)he's a bad ass and isn't afraid of anything, or (b)he's too old to give a !@#$, i.e. "Great. More people staring at me. Again."

While taking pictures I discovered something very odd about this turtle that made him look a little bit diabolical. His eyelids were white! First of all, I never thought of turtles blinking before. Second, shouldn't the lids match his face? I don't know the scientific reasoning behind this but it is an oddity indeed. Quite frankly, it made him look possessed.

Grumpy old turtle.

Half blink. Weird, I know. I guess he was keeping an eye on me. Ha. Haha.

Possessed turtle.

I took this from inside the house, hence his bravery at sticking his head way out, which by the way, his head was effing huge! It reminding me of Jabba the Hut.

When I first saw him, he was full on moving across the front yard. After he came in contact with people and we went back inside, he proceeded to sit there and wait. And wait. And wait some more. I guess he was making sure we weren't coming back to bother him? So then he'd move two feet, and wait again. He ended up crawling into our front garden where he spent the rest of the day. We went back outside with Babe later in the afternoon and she'd want to get close to sniff it but we had to keep shouting, "No!" because the curmudgeonly turtle was totally giving her this, "Closer...come a little closer, that's it, look into my eyes, just a little bit closer..." look. I think he wanted to inhale her whole or something. He probably could have done it, too.

I couldn't find him this morning. Hopefully he went on his slow merry way. Although, I have this sense of foreboding that he's probably still in the garden waiting silently to strike.

Green Lynx

So, I get home, get out of the car, walk to the back door, open the screen door and have myself a very good scream. Why? A huge ugly hairy spider I have never seen before in my life was hanging out on the edge of the door. So gross.

It's called a Green Lynx Spider. It likes to live in the plants and live off of insects and will bite a human when threatened. When bitten, the human will feel pain, burning and itching accompanied by swelling of the bite area in a diameter of 7 to 10 inches.

I, of course, only learned all this after I felt compelled to swat the thing on the floor and capture it under a glass vase. What if it had been a brand new spider species never discovered before?! ($$$)
I needed to capture it alive. Though now that I know it's common, I don't know what to do with it. I could kill it but I don't want to hear the crunch, and I could let it go but I don't want it to go make spider spawn that will infest the front garden.

Maybe I'll go put it in Amber's front yard. Muahahaha.

{eye roll}

So, dove hunting season started this week. My brother, K, brought down his 4 year old son, C, for his first hunting trip. My dad, K, and C all went out together for a lovely all morning kill-fest. They all took a break in the middle of the day. In the late afternoon K and C were playing NCAA football on Play Station, dad decided to go out hunting again - by himself. About 30 minutes later K and C head out to join him for round 2 of "kill birds that are life partners". Ten minutes later I get a call from my dad. For brevity d=Dad, k=me. The following is how our conversation transpired:

ring-ring!

k:hello?
d: bring me more shotgun shells
k: i don't know where the shot gun shells are
d: look in the kitchen
k: not there, i think they're in K's truck
d: where's K?
k: i thought he was down there with you
d: oh, damn, there go some more! {that would be doves flying over his head}
d:i need more shot gun shells! i only have a few more!
k: i don't know what to tell you

d: {blah blah blah, ramble ramble}
d: uh-oh
k: what?
d: hang on
{pause}
d: i'm standing next to a rattlesnake

k: what?!!!

d: {shotgun pops going off}

k: dad?!
d: it's ok, it doesn't have a head anymore
k: oh, well that's good

-end of call after more chitchat and assurance that i indeed do not have the shotgun shells-

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you my father. The man who has the inane talent of getting within life threatening distances of poisonous reptiles. This was round two, by the way. A couple of months ago he stuck his hand within five inches (unknowlingly) of a rattlesnake that was taking a nap in the flower garden. This time he manages to be standing within a couple of feet of one. At least he saw it, at least this snake, too, was napping, and at least he was armed. The snake was about four feet long, and had maybe 15 rattles on it. At least we don't live in India where cobras decide to nap in people's laundry baskets. Gosh.

R.I.P.

I killed a bird today. I don't think it's murder, because I didn't intentionally set out to kill the thing...I swear. So would it be manslaughter? Birdslaughter, rather? If they had court hearings for roadkill I might be convicted of vehicular birdslaughter.

I was driving at 10 in the morning, which is a rarity. I wasn't entirely awake yet. I'm driving along, minding my own business, when I see this bird flying. It lands in the road in front of me. It hops into my lane to grab something, a bug, something to build a nest, I don't know. The distance between us is getting shorter and shorter. It turns and looks right at me. Our eyes meet. I think he was entranced by my Gucci knock-off sunglasses because he just sat there staring at me wasting precious seconds. My right front wheel hit him right when he decided it would be a fantastic idea to take the heck off.

This all happened in a matter of 3-4 seconds. Yes, I cringed when it hit my wheel. No, it never occurred to me to swerve. There wasn't a whole lot of room anyway. I wonder if it was grabbing food for some babies? Did I just orphan a nest of baby birds? Did I just rack up a child endangerment charge? Hopefully the baby mama bird will be able to be a single parent. Oh, Jesus! Do they mate for life?! Did I kill her one true love?! I need to quit thinking about this.

I forgot to check if there were feathers stuck in my wheel. Hmm.

Zoology

I went to the Fort Worth Zoo a couple of weeks ago with the fam...

Blue and Yellow Macaw "love birds"...

A young adult lion who was looking at me like I was dinner...

A giraffe that looked like he had a serious pain in the neck...

I can't tell you how much I would love to be this hippo.
To be fat and happy sitting in a cool clear pool of water avoiding the 100+ degree Texas heat all day...priceless!

The Turtle and the Hound

Babe and I found a turtle in the yard. He/She didn't want to come out to play.

Swallowtail butterflies and a possible tornado...

I found this Swallowtail butterfly in my yard the other afternoon...

This was yesterday. I could have sworn a tornado was going to pop out of it,
but that never happened. Thank God.

chasing rats

Babe was chasing rats again. In our dirty storage room. I thought I'd share how this goes down:

Babe enters the store room. Babe catches scent of a rat. Babe pin points rat's location. Babe shrieks (barks) for rat to come out. Woofer and Sophie stare at Babe wondering what's going on. Babe continues her sad excuse for a bark. The rat sits in it's hiding spot refusing to come out. Babe shrieks some more. Babe hyperventilates.

Sometimes the rat wins. Sometimes she does.

Today the rat eluded her, but only because I dragged her away from it so she wouldn't have a doggy heart attack.

Sophie was only hunting a rabbit...

She was sniffing around in the woodpile trying to force out the rabbit that resides there, but she found a poisonous snake instead. Her snout is puffy and there's this drainage stuff collecting around her neck. I took her to the vet, he gave her a shot, she seems to be in good spirits, so I suppose she will be fine. The size of her swelling makes me nervous, though. The picture doesn't do it justice. See the two prick marks to the left of her nose? Snake bite, baby.

poor Babe

My dad has been in the hospital a week now. Babe is going crazy, she misses him so much. Whenever Mom leaves in the morning, Babe wakes me up with a round of despondent howling...that lasts for hours. Why?
(1) She thinks she's all alone.
(2) She misses Mom.
(3) She misses Dad.
(4) She REALLY misses Dad.
She jumps at every noise that could be the door opening, or that could be a car pulling in the garage, any noise that could mean Dad's finally coming back.
My only refuge from the howling is to get up from bed and groggily stumble around the house in the early morning to find her and bring her back to bed with me where she will stay at peace for 30 minutes until she pricks her ears up and listens for any sound that could belong to Dad, thinks she hears something, begs me to let her go, and upon the moment she leaves my room finds he is not there, commences another round of howling.
He should come home this weekend. I pray for her sake that this is true.