Big Bend Escape - 1

It’s been more than 10 days since I returned from my wonderful trip to Texas. I’ve been sifting through the 500 pictures and many pages of notes, checking my facts on the Internet, and designing this piece of “cover art.” So it just APPEARS that I’ve been a lazy blogger.

Also I’ve been going to work every day, trapping raccoons (5 now), and trying to stay ahead of the weeds in the garden. And while I’m doing the other things, I’m thinking about the trip, about my friend Merlene, and about how wonderful it is to have friends from long ago.

Merlene and I have had far different lives since high school. I’ve had a pretty “white bread” existence, while her life has had more challenges. I’ve always thought her very brave and capable.

My job in education is primarily accomplished in a nice office, with a computer. I don’t see real students at work, though I’ve been fortunate over the years to have great kids in my 4-H projects.

Merlene teaches troubled teenagers who have real problems, not a job many of us would volunteer to do. For some of them the school she works at is their last chance.

But this is not what intimidated me about her. She is only a year younger than I am, but she remembers details, facts, and figures. I was amazed. We’d drive along and she’d point out some globby rock formation (Texas has a variety of them) and tell me how they were formed, what their names are, and a host of other interesting factoids. This was balanced by a fair assortment of local gossip in towns where she’d lived. I not only had a good time, I learned a lot.

A lot that I’ll promptly forget because I remember concepts, not details, (or maybe I’m just senile) but what a treat!

Roasted Raccoon

The following recipe is from Roundup Recipes, ©1951 by The World Publishing Company. Authors Bonnie and Ed Peplow, page 127.
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Clean and joint the raccoon. Soak overnight in salt water with baking soda added in the proportion of 1 teaspoon baking soda to 1 quart water. Next morning, wash in several waters, roll in flour, season with pepper and salt, also desert sage – if possible – if not, regular sage, seasoning to taste. Place in covered roaster, add 1 quart boiling water, put on the cover and bake 1 hour in medium oven. Then add sweet potatoes and bake another 45 minutes. If you make sure your raccoons are well corn-fed like the ones our boys are trapping out of our cornfield, I am sure this should turn out to be as tender as a mother’s love.
Mrs. Betty Girdner
Geronimo Holdout Ranch
Cornville Arizona
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I found this recipe in the “Game” section of the book, right between recipes for squirrel stew and porcupine. I think it could be adapted for crock pot use. The authors didn't recommend the BBQ method for any wild game, presumably it would be too tough.

Home Again — The Good and The Bad

I got home from Texas on Saturday. It was a fun trip and I’ll be telling you all about it when I get my photos straightened out.

In Texas, spring is at least 3 weeks behind California. The grass is still winter dry and the trees are bare. What a contrast, coming home to this —


Impersonating Mother Nature —


The flower bed is nice, but look at the weeds behind me! This is the second growth of weeds so far this year. I have a goat, but he isn’t fond of weeds.

Everything was well tended at home, Bob had the house clean, he even picked a bouquet of tulips for my birthday.

That was the good.

Later in the evening, a terrorist attacked. A raccoon broke into the chicken pen. Bob smacked it with a shovel, but it escaped. A black pullet, in a panic, flew out of the pen and disappeared. This is the pullet a couple of months ago. She's Alan's sister.


Bob and I split up and went 'round and 'round the yard with flashlights at least 3 times and couldn’t find her.

The raccoon did, though.


I hate raccoons. They are evil killers. They don’t eat what they kill, they just mutilate and leave the bodies. My chickens do not run loose to unfairly tempt predators, they’re in a chain-link pen. A wild animal has to work very hard to break into it. Wild animals around here have lots of room to live without invading my yard.

I wondered if I could buy an AK47 and mount it in my bedroom window. But the next morning there was a dead raccoon on the highway. Good riddance.

1000 Miles and Counting

Cap'n and I are in Texas. The state is huge, and a lot of it is empty. Well, not actually empty, there are a lot of rocks.

So far I've seen 4 new bird to add to my life list, and this afternoon we saw a Bighorn Sheep in the middle of the road.

Everyone in the Hill Country has llamas. There are llots of llamas in Llano. None in Lukenbach. Lots of chickens there, though, roosting in trees right over the picnic tables.

Today we were in Big Bend. You travel through the desert and then up through some mountains and on top there's the Chisos Basin. There are pine trees up there and it's very lush. It's like something invented by an author's imagination.

Between Big Bend and Presidio is 50 or so miles of road along the Rio Grande river. It's a very interesting and challenging route, luckily we did it in the daytime.

I can't imagine how people traveled in Texas in the old days, it takes a long time in a car.

Bob Was Here

Actually he's been here for 24 years, yesterday was his birthday. This is his cake. I baked it. He decorated it in Lego decor. Then he bit a corner off the cake.


Sometimes he's pretty weird.


But I love my kid.

Neuropathy of the Mind

It’s been hard to blog lately. Blogging takes some creativity. That’s one thing I love about it. But my mind has been numb. The work I do has been pretty mundane for months, but the past 3 months I’ve been doing the same dang stuff over and over and over. I could counter that by doing creative things at home, but that would stimulate my mind. Then the next day at work would seem even more boring in comparison.

So I come home, do my chores, then play Bejeweled or Solitaire on my iPhone until I fall asleep saying to myself, “I’m fortunate to HAVE a job.” And I could retire, if I choose to, so working is my choice.

I’m really looking forward to getting away on vacation, though. I’m not telling you when that will be, I’ve been told not to announce things like that to prospective burglars who might read blogs. Most of my readers are friends, relatives, or people who live in England. And I have nothing worth stealing. Also it doesn’t matter if I’m gone, the house will still be full of Bob and his people.

So, I’ll tell you when I get there.

In the meantime, I’m trying to keep my brain numbed because I still have a few days at work. Yesterday I worked in the yard. I sat on my stool and picked tiny weeds with my fingernails. It was very tedious, but it was soooo nice being outside.

Here are some pictures of the yard.

First tulips. They came up and bloomed in about 7 days. The tall red ones are in their second year.


This little yellow one was just planted in November.


The backyard looks a lot better this year. I threw some lawn seed out in November also. It’s almost time to take the plastic off the pens. I’m thinking it might be nice to have some new aviaries built, too. It’s hard to find people to do that.


The old tree stump where I feed the wild birds is covered with fungus this year. George must have found either a mouse hole, or a toad hole in it.


Close-up of the fungus. It’s really nice having a grown-up kid around. The younger version would have smashed the fungus just because it’s there. The older version appreciates the beauty of things before he smashes them.


I need to report that the Valentine’s Day pigeon affair isn’t working as planned. Bob thinks Val is a male, not a female. The other possibility is that Roger is just a grump and doesn’t want ANYONE near his nest. They were together for a week and fussed at each other constantly.

The other two pigeons, a pair of Taganrogs, had just laid their dozenth pair of eggs that didn’t hatch. So I split them up and put the female in with Val. By the end of the week, there were two new eggs, but neither bird is setting on them, they’re just sort of hanging around looking at the eggs. At least they’re not fighting.

Meanwhile, Roger is happy to be alone again. His neighbor is the Little White OE Hen, and he enjoys her company. The other male seems happy to be away from his “mate.” He doesn’t have to carry sticks to a nest anymore, or sit on eggs while his wife is out partying, All he has to do is lay in the sun and preen. These Russian pigeons are strange.

When I got to work this a.m., Melanie said she'd spent her day in the sun stripping old hair off her dog. I guess she's trying to keep her mind numb, too.

A New Adventure

Cap’n P, perhaps like the rest of you who are retired, sometimes finds his life a bit slow. After all, he went from running a whole starship to just sitting in my kitchen window every day. And even in that bright spot, the days have been gray and dingy lately.

So the Cap’n is contemplating a trip. He decided he wanted a t-shirt to wear so he could experience the trip as a true tourist. There were only two shirts in his size.


I think the Cap’n prefers London. He’s sort of a highbrow, you know, does Shakespeare and all that. I had to point out that while the Cap’n does have a passport, I do not. And unless he can get himself beamed somewhere, he’ll have to travel in my purse.

So put on the Texas shirt, Cap’n, we’re heading for the Lonestar State! While we’re there, we’ll visit my high school buddy Merlene and look for armadillos.


In the meantime, the Cap’n will practice living like a real Texan. He’s getting accustomed to wearing a white hat (to keep the sun off that bald head) and kicking road apples.