Building a New Environment

     Stephen and I sat down a couple of days ago so we could put both of our ideas down on paper. We created a blueprint of exactly how we want things to look when we are finished. We seem to add new things on a daily basis but when all the details are finalized I will share them.
     Some of the things we are including in our blueprints are.... an outside bar, a bocce ball court, an herb garden, root cellar, my zen garden, a 350 foot stream with a couple of footbridges, and a pond. We are also planting several fruit trees and a bamboo forest. It will be a lot of work but we have already started to dig the stream and hopefully the recent rains will help wash it out even more.
     I am also building a wildlife viewing blind on the back 20 acres so I can capture the beauty of the wildlife that has been moving into the area with the cooler weather. We saw two large mule deer a few days ago. One was a 10 point and the other a 6. Stephen is ready for hunting season to start but I have to take the hunter's safety course first.
    We want our place to be an oasis for wildlife and we know that this means some of the less desirable animals may wander in as well but I feel that the area has always been theirs. We decided that we will only kill the animals if they are a threat. We saw our first badger the other day. Stephen didn't even know that badgers lived in the desert and he wanted to shoot it. It hissed at him a few times but I told him he had to let it go on it's way. It ran and jumped in a hole that my oldest son had made so when Stephen looked in it was not happy. Once we backed away it crawled out and ran off. I wanted to shoot it too... with my camera. It was amazing. I didn't have my camera with me but now I am keeping it by my side at all times.
    The snakes are really starting to move around now. We killed another a couple days ago. It is the third poisonous snake we have killed. We also saw a bull snake which was beautiful and about five feet long. Of course, we let it go about its business. It will help keep down the population of rodents and smaller poisonous snakes. Most of the snakes we have killed have a lot of rattles. The past two have been 9 and 10 years old. I kind of feel bad because this has been their land and now we are moving in and taking it over. If they stay away from the house I don't mind sharing the area. I am grateful that winter is coming so they will climb under some rocks for a while.

 

Not Poisonous and still alive somewhere on El Chupacabra Ranch

 Poisonous and dead... was only 20 feet from our front door!

 

 

 

         

Tiny Horned Toad

     When I was growing up in the hill country I remember seeing horned toads all over the place. I never realized that it had been so long since I had seen one until I moved to west Texas. I now wonder when they began to disappear from the areas I grew up with. I am sure you can find one here and there but they are few and far between. In Bertram I remember seeing them quite a bit but after I moved an hour or so away I never saw any. Now looking back on it I realize that even visits back to that small hill country town did not produce any horned toad viewing.
      Since we have moved here we have seen several horned toads. Stephen came to me with the most adorable thing I had ever seen so I snapped these pictures just to let you know that in west Texas they still thrive.

      

The Final Move

     Everything was set to take the final load to our new home. We had just a bit of packing left to do and suddenly we both got sick. We were so sick with whatever it was that we could hardly get out of bed. We had paid Stephen's mom to do the final cleaning but when we got sick, she did more than we ever expected. She came over every day, for three days, and cleaned, packed, and helped load the truck and trailer. I don't know what we would have done without her. When she wasn't caring for the house, she was doctoring us and cooking our meals. After everything was finished and we were on the road with our final load, she got sick. I felt so bad after all she had done for us and we could not do the same for her.
      The shop was enclosed and everything had to be unloaded into it. We were still weak from whatever had knocked us down. Stephen's brother, David, had come with us on this trip. He had pulled Stephen's truck as well as hauling a load in the back of his own. It was his first time seeing our place nestled in the mountains. We were glad he came along to help unload and spend some time out on the land.
      The house was not finished but at least it was dried in and had a roof on it. We knew that we would have our work cut out for us. I think my least favorite part was the fact that we had to use a compost toilet. I was told that this was the norm for the area but I wanted inside plumbing. We went to the county to see what regulations were for the installation of septic systems but, other than the certificate of compliance- which we already had, there was nothing more we needed to do. So, this was my most important goal!
      Our first week living full time at our new place we encountered our first wildlife neighbor. He wasn't exactly happy to see us there. I was willing to be neighborly but he just wanted to have things his way. So, Stephen and Mr. Mohave did not see eye to eye- resulting in the death of Mr. Mohave (a fictional character; not referncing any specific person with said last name).

       I was glad that Stephen saw the snake before my little dog, Baby, walked by and got bit. Baby loves it out west. He jumps around and runs in circles when he gets to walk on the road. Baby is a mix between a papallon and a chihuahua. He weighs just a few ounces over five pounds. This was a warning that I needed to stay close to my little dog when it is outside and that the desert is definitely a wild place; not to be taken for granted.
     
   

Freeway

      After renting our house, we had a lot of packing to do. The next week was non-stop running and travel. Stephen had to work in Waxahachie in the middle of the move which added to our extensive travel time. Each trip to our west Texas home was a ten hour drive- one way. We had to make a trip out to enclose the shop so that we could use it for storage while we continued building our home.
      On the way back to Bastrop, after a long couple days of working on the property, we were approached by a semi-truck driver who had found an injured Audad. He was trying to find a wildlife refuge but was running into dead ends. He knew he could not care for the young animal and asked if we would take it in. The poor thing had one eye that was just gushing blood, one of its' tiny horns was broken off, and it had a small scratch above the other eye. We doctored it and stopped to get some baby goat milk and a bottle to care for it during the rest of our drive.
      Once back in Bastrop, the Audad (which the truck driver had named Freeway) was feeling a bit better. It was a stubborn little thing but she was adorable. Over the next few days she learned to follow us around. She also learned to get into all kinds of mayhem. She would jump up on the kitchen sink and turn on the water, she chased my little dogs in circles around the bed, and she would eat her bottle, only on her terms. She also insisted that the bed was hers!

        At first she was hard to get used to having around. School had started and she would scream for attention while I was trying to study. She started to get an attitude about eating and just found it to be a game. She would be eating her bottle just fine and then would realize that she was doing what we wanted her to so she would stop and start fighting it. Poor Stephen was covered in bruises.
      The last trip to our property, before moving out there, we took Freeway for a walk. She loved it out there because it was so close to her home....which was in the mountains close to Van Horn. She did very well on a leash and we could let her off and she would come when we called her name. This day was different and when Stephen let her loose she ran ahead. We called to her and she stopped, waiting patiently for us to catch up. Just as we got near she took off again. We called her name and again she stopped. This time she looked back at us and then forward again. I told Stephen he better get her or she won't stop the next time she runs. The wild nature in her had returned but she was still eating from a bottle and completely blind in one eye. She only had bottom teeth- the top had not come in and her injuries were still not completely healed. Stephen called her again to make sure she was waiting there but she suddenly took off through the desert. We took off after her but could not find her in the thick brush.
      We spent all night looking for her and calling to her. I knew that once night fell she belonged to the desert. With coyotes and mountain lions all over the valley, she would have no chance. Stephen thought she would return when she got hungry but we never saw her again.
      A few days ago, I saw another Audad about her size and I realized that the little girl with the big personality would always hold a piece of my heart!

A Break From The City

   We decided that we needed a break from the Austin traffic and the stresses of every day life in the burbs so we headed out to spend a weekend checking out our land. We had not found the time to camp as much this year as we usually had so this was a perfect opportunity to do it. We left a bit later than expected so we arrived around dusk. Camp had to be set up quickly and the wood had to be gathered for a fire. It was strange to be in a place that had no burn ban in effect. It also seemed to be much cooler than home. By dark the temperature gauge in my truck read sixty-seven degrees. We were loving it.
   Even with the camp fire, there seemed to be a million more stars in the sky. Out in the desert it is so dark at night, the closest neighbor being miles away. Even though our property sits just off a dirt county road, the only traffic at night was from the border patrol switching shifts. We are only eight miles from the Mexican border but there is a very large mountain range between us and them. The desert silence can be deafening to someone who is so used to the non-stop sounds of city life.

   Around eleven we all went to bed and just a few hours later I woke up thinking border patrol was shining a flashlight in my face. It was the strangest feeling but when I opened my eyes, it was the biggest moon I had ever seen. It had come up over the mountains and was shining in on me with such brilliance that I never would have thought it would be the moon waking me. I realized how cold it had become and tried to steal a bit of blanket from Stephen who is a huge blanket hog.   
   One thing I discovered out there was that time seemed so different. There was about an hour less daylight due to the rise and fall of the sun in the mountains. I woke very early, about 5:30 or 6. The temperature in my truck read fifty-six degrees and it was July. It was amazing!
   We started to walk our property line. The property ran two miles across the front, along the road and then all the way back to the mountains. During the hike we found many things we did not expect to see in the desert such as dragonflies and turtles. There were also jackrabbits, butterflies, many colorful birds, flowers, and crazy looking bugs. It was streaming with life.

 

 

 

    The temperature rose to ninety-five degrees but had a nice breeze and felt cooler than back home. We were much more comfortable and were relieved to be rid of that hot sticky feeling. We had taken our sons, Billy and John, with us and they were enjoying the freedom to run wild... even though they were 18 and 16. We gave Billy a new nickname... Billyjack. He received this name for two reasons. First, he ran through the desert, jumping bushes, and chasing rabbits as if he had been one in a previous life. Second, he tried to ride dust devils by running and jumping into them. One was so powerful that it pulled his shirt all the way over his head with it hanging on by just one of his arms. It was a sight to see.... crazy boy!
   My youngest son, John, spent the weekend hunting jackrabbits. He never gave up and just before we were leaving he finally got one. He brought it home and made jackrabbit stew.... I had none! The guys all said it was amazing.
   This was the beginning of the end for us. Life as we knew it had changed and we really felt it when we arrived back home to over one hundred degree temps and no breeze; even the evenings were barely below ninety. People started asking us why we would buy land in West Texas and we knew that no matter what we told them, they would never understand.