We Love Texas: May 2018

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Lovebugs

We've been seeing a few lovebugs lately. I don't remember noticing them in previous years, but we had lots of them when we lived in Florida. Our cars would get splattered with them.

So far they're not very bad here. I've noticed a few in the garden.

They are harmless, don't bite or sting, and keep to themselves mating in flight. They may even be a helpful insect in the garden.

The scientific name for them is plecia nearctica and they are a species of the march fly. You can read more about them here.

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Skink

We found this unusual creature on the driveway one afternoon. The dogs or cat had found it somewhere, killed it, and brought it up near the house to show us. It was missing it's tail by the time we found it. I set my car keys down by it to give it some scale, otherwise it might have looked larger than it actually was.

After some online research, Son decided it was called a Skink. Possibly a Brown Skink. It looked like a large lizard to me. But you can read more about them here. It's not dangerous so it might have been helpful around the garden if it hadn't been played with and killed.

Then the next day I found another dead one by the front door. This one was slightly different and looked more like a Five-Lined Skink. But this one was missing the head.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Chinese Privet

In the late spring there is a large shrub, looks like a tree to me, just near the chicken coop door, that has little white very fragrant blossoms. I wish you could smell it. To me, it smells like honeysuckle. It's a nice change to the usual smells near the edge of the woods.

After searching awhile online, I came up with the Chinese Privet. It looks the closest to anything I could find. (If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will let me know.) Apparently it is an "invasive" species that I should watch carefully. But so far I'm just enjoying the pretty blossoms and pleasant smell.

Monday, May 28, 2018

Lavender Teacakes

I've got a new favorite daytime television program - Home and Family on the Hallmark Channel. It is shown here in the morning, but I have my system set to record "all new" episodes. I usually watch the episodes later in the day when I'm needing to sit and rest awhile. I'm about a month behind on watching episodes. The benefit of watching a recording is that I can skip over the segments that I don't have a particular interest in. So I sometimes will watch two episodes in one sitting.

Recently one episode had a kitchen segment with someone from American's Test Kitchen visiting. She made some little cakes that I thought looked good, and easy enough for me to try. Plus it called for lavender, and I have some dried and some in my garden. The other ingredients were also things I already had, although I did substitute vanilla bean paste for the actual bean, because that's what I had in my cupboard.

They turned out pretty good, and definitely something I'll make again, although I will admit I couldn't actually taste the ground lavender. I will grease the muffin tins better next time because they didn't all come out of the pan neatly.

Here's the link to the recipe if you'd like to try them sometime. They're best eaten on the day but a few did survive until the next day and were still pretty good.

Lavender Teacakes

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Strawberries

We're finally getting some good strawberries. After several years of trying, I had just about given up on them.

Some of the plants are from so long ago that I forget when I actually first planted them. We were getting a few strawberries in June 2013, so I had planted them sometime before then.

I started with them in the hydroponic tubs, but they didn't do very well. So I transplanted them to the raised beds in October 2105.

I try to pick them every morning. But some mornings I don't have time to really look for them. They tend to hide under the leaves so you really have to search for them.

Lately we've been getting more than we can eat that day, so I've been freezing them. I wash them, let them dry, cut the tops off, then lay them on a baking tray so they don't touch. Once they're frozen hard, I put them in plastic zip bags.

I'm not even sure what varieties we have. They are smaller and softer than the ones you can buy. Might be our imagination, but we think they are also sweeter and tastier.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Bird Nest

There's a small bird nest inside the chicken coop. It's been there a few years, and I've probably blogged about it before.

I first started paying attention when I noticed two little eggs (about the size of Cadbury mini eggs) in the nest. Actually, when I first really noticed was when a bird flew out in my face one morning when I went into the chicken coop. After a few mornings of being startled by the bird, I began to anticipate it and wait for it to leave before I stepped inside.

Then I started watching for the eggs. After a few more days, there were five eggs. I'm guessing the mama bird was sitting on the eggs when I wasn't out there, because after about 2 weeks, the eggs had hatched.

I would have loved to have seen the mama bird feeding the babies, but that never happened. I never saw the mama again. I'm sure she was around and feeding them, because the babies didn't die and were getting bigger.

Then two weeks later, almost to the day, I startled them. I was trying to take a photo of them all crowded in the nest, and they all flew out. A few flew up and out of the coop. A few sort of fell-flew to the floor. I managed to catch one and took a quick photo before it escaped and flew away.

I was curious about the incubation and growing period. The time stamping on my photos helped. Incubation period was about two weeks, and hatch to flying was about two weeks. Also birds seem to have the same ability as chickens to lay an egg for several days until they have enough and then sit on them to hatch. They also lay the right amount that they can cover and keep warm.

I searched on WhatBird to help, but I can't decide. The more I look, the more I can't decide. They were either wrens or sparrows. Maybe some of my bird watching friends will know.