80 Acres: June 16, 2006

[e_moon60]

The rain stopped a week ago; the winter grasses are brown or browning, the early wildflowers have gone to seed.  But soil moisture is still good. The tallgrasses (switchgrass, Eastern gama, Indiangrass, big bluestem) are doing very well (switchgrass in the secondary drainage is taller than we are.)   There's an area in the east grass we call "The

Comments

[blueeowyn]

Lovely photos. I've been thinking of your place as I hear about the rains in TX. The bird photo is an interesting bit of timing, my DH recently posted about a bird ID website (http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/photo-id/) ... I have no opinions about its accuracy or safety but the timing was interesting.

[e_moon60]

Rain here always brings rapid growth--and exuberant growth if in the warm 2/3 of the year. In what used to be normal years, there was a more gentle transition from rain to the summer drier period, with an equally gentle transition from cooler to hotter temperatures, but both last year (when the rains extended to the first weeks of June here, and the end of June in Austin) and this year (when the rains ceased abruptly the first week of June) the rains went from every-day-for-weeks to none, and temps below normal to very hot, within a week. Last year's flooding rains in May and early June changed to no rain at all and temps quickly climbing into the 100s. Austin began having rain again before we did--we had no rain until mid or late October. Very hard on plants & animals (and humans!)

I hope we don't go right into the 100sF and do without rain for six months--it's happened before, but we were just recovering from 8 years of below normal rain, 5 of them fiercely below.

[gifted]

Lovely grasses, that must be a good sign that they are growing all together in the one area. And what a beautiful bird. Reminds me of the (more plump) lady that hangs about on my backyard's tree and washing line; different species but similar beak and colouring, though she is slightly more plain in colour (albeit a beautiful sheen to the feathers) and lacks in the "bib".

[e_moon60]

It's certainly good to have this area go from almost barren to mostly vegetated, with the water absorbed up-slope coming out slowly rather than rushing down to erodes the soil. The variety is interesting; it reflects the different soil depths and the amount and duration of soil moisture...the Bowl is not uniform, with everything mixed in evenly. Those differences--in soil type, depth, and moisture-holding through time, in slope and orientation--are revealed in what chooses to grow where. And the differences themselves are partly natural and partly man-made. The end of a ridge that creates the slope, is natural--limestone, with fossils, and bits of coral--there was a reef here once. When Europeans arrived, it was a mix of tallgrass and midgrass prairie and islands of woods--along the little streams, on some slopes

[gifted]

Interesting. ^-^ So much history. I wish all farmers and landowners would take such care.