Meet the Neighbors - Spring Bloom - Bonfire of the Campgrounds

As mentioned in previous posts we are out in the middle of farm and ranch country.  We're east of hill country and west of the piney woods, smack in the middle of wide open spaces where the cattle population is greater than the people population.  Couldn't be better.

While beef cattle are the primary bovine in the area there are a fair number of ranches that have herds of longhorns.  And not just any old longhorn either, these are registered, their bloodlines carefully traced back to the origins of the breed.  No matter which direction we take to exit the lake to go to one of the surrounding towns we pass by a longhorn pasture.  So one day, on the rare occasion that the wind was not peeling the hair off your head, we decided to stop and get a look at one of the herds without being at 70mph.

This particular herd was a couple hundred yards away so I walked up to the fence and started dialing up the zoom on the camera.  The cattle took note of my presence and without hesitation started ambling my way with what appeared to me as a look of curiosity on their faces.

Longhorns showing interest in my presence.

One fellow in particular walked towards me and never broke stride until reaching the fence.  His posture was not that of aggression but more like a dog walking up to be petted.  As he got closer I was also able to see a very distinguishing feature, his nose was as crooked as it could be.  He looked like he had caught an elbow in a no-rules game of pick-up basketball.

Regardless, he just kept coming to me and directly he was pushing that crooked nose over the fence to check me out close up.  I've worked cattle and despite this ones docile demeanor I backed up 1.5 horn lengths away.  I didn't want a casual toss of his head turning into a bad day for me.

Howdy! You new around here?

You can see from the pasture pictures that things a beginning to green up around here.  We've been anticipating the 'greening' with hopes of seeing the wildflowers that this part of Texas is known for.  And we have not been disappointed.  The Indian Paintbrush and Bluebonnets are coming out everywhere and great prairie carpets of little yellow flowers that I don't know the name of.

Texas Bluebonnet (Lupinus texensis)

Texas Indian Paintbrush
(Castilleja indivisa)

The above pics are of a couple of early bloomers.  But since I took those the masses have emerged.

It hasn't all been socializing with the neighbors and tiptoeing through the flowers.  Work still continues on the massive cleanup of the February ice storm.  One of our burn piles had reached maximum capacity and we caught a break with the weather and had ideal burn conditions.

Going

Going

Gone

But this isn't the end of it.  The above burn is only about one tenth of what needs to be done.  We have plenty of burn piles scattered around the entire Granger Lake Project, and more to go.

Still enjoying our sunsets.