Sting Operation In Blanco County

     Today, while I was weed-eating the trails, I suddenly felt like I was being stung all over by fire ants. Because my goggles were somewhat foggy, I didn't know what was stinging me until finally I saw a lot of somethings hurriedly flying around me. That's when I thought "Yikes! Wasps!!!"  I had to think FAST. I knew if I laid the weed-eater down and left it running, the wasps would focus their attention on it because of the loud noise and vibrations, which gave me time to run for it. 

After a while, most of the wasps went back into their ground nest. Meanwhile, around 15 to 20 were still flying around and lurking on the weed- eater. I knew I had to turn the machine off so I slowly walked over, wearing my gloves, hat and goggles, and turned it off. Two wasps were stationed close to the on/off switch. Leaving it running was not an option due to safety concerns. Getting stung another 10 to 20 times was better than having a fire start. Luckily, not one stung me. With the weed-eater turned off, after what seemed like eternity, they were all back in their home, which allowed me to retrieve the weed-eater. The sting operation was over, and now it was time to get through the pain. Thankfully, I'm not allergic. 

These aggressive wasps were likely southern yellowjackets (Vespula squamosa). 

A wonderful friend

     This morning, Robert Zito, our good friend and financial planner, had a surprise for us when he came to go over our yearly financial report. The surprise was a Leopold bench that he made himself for our property outside of town. He even delivered it out there, and I made sure he signed it. (Great idea, Sheryl!) I've always wanted him to go check out our land so it was a perfect opportunity to at least give him a brief tour of the top. We cut it short because of the excessive heat. Hopefully, he will come back with his grandson  this fall, and we can dig and sift for fossils and artifacts. What an amazing person! One of the nicest people I have ever known.  THANK YOU, ROBERT!

Butchering tools in Blanco County

This is just a fraction of what I've been finding lately on our property. Judging by the size of these artifacts, the animals must have been  fairly large. This stuff is everywhere...

 

Fall in Blanco county....

 Went out today to see if the fall colors have arrived at the land and boy did they arrive! It'll probably peak this weekend.

Happy Trails in the Blanco Hill Country...

One day, I was watching a Texas Parks and Wildlife television show about an 80-year-old retired math teacher, who was voluntarily creating biking and hiking trails in the Guadalupe Mountains for the park system. I noticed that he wasn't using a regular rake. Instead, he was using a rake hoe, which is specifically designed for raking rocks. So you want to guess what I wanted for my birthday? Yep, a rock rake! I wish I would have known about this years ago but better late than never.

This is the rake that I purchased from a company called Rogue. 

These pictures were taken before the work. 

This was one I just started working on.

I decided to rake the rocks in rows to make it easier to load up in the bucket and haul off. Of course, there were a few that didn't fit that I had to pick up and move.

When doing trail work on the land, I'm always thinking of creative ways to keep the rain water from running off the property and the soil from eroding away. So what am I doing with the rocks? Building berms! This slows the water down and allows it to percolate into the aquifer, helping restore life to our beautiful pristine Hill Country springs. This is just one picture of a few so far that I've built. It goes for quite aways. More to come for sure...

Here is a sample of what the trails look like after raking in 100-plus-degree temperature ... Labor of love.

In the picture below, you can see a line of rocks sticking out of the ground. These are deep and will stay.

On the bottom of the picture below is another huge rock that will stay. 

Since these pictures were taken, I have done a lot more work, especially in the woods down below the hill. Besides utilizing the land for star gazing, fossil and artifact hunting, hiking, bird watching, kite flying, caving (future expedition), studying native vegetation and picnicking, I can now add trail biking! The saga continues....