Holed up with Liberty Creek Cabernet Sauvignon this time around, the store was out of Merlot.

Wind just got here.

Gonna fire up a fatty?

we got hit hard around 10 this morning. they're saying another round about midnight.

Rain just got here.

Never been a toker, never have bought it, my last hit on a joint was 28 years ago. I remember because of the woman who offered it.

Nothing against it, just doesn’t agree with me is all.

Building up here again. It will be headed yall’s way soon

Raining like a futhermucker now. Old dog is out here with me, she used to hide when these happened, prob’ly not as scary when ya can’t hear em.

We lost power about 1/2 hour ago. Lots of bad azz donner und blitzen. Everything is flooded here

I stubbed my toe when power went off getting my flashlight so I could find my corkscrew.


Did I memtion my bad hangnail on left ring finger ??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

60F here nice evening.

Hows that Liberty Creek wine, Birdy?

One night seven years back, new heeler puppy was hiding way back under the back porch in a thunderstorm, it was like Gilligans Island. I’m on my belly under the porch trying to call puppy who weren’t having none of it.

Who hears me in what she thought was distress, runs out of the back closet in the bedroom, out the back door and into the maelstrom? Old heeler, when she was younger and chicken.

Next thing ya know a dripping wet heeler (her) bellies up to me under the porch and licks my ear

Ya don’t ferget loyalty like that.

Puppy stayed out there till morning.

Am as happy for you as a jealous man can be. Lordy it’s one of my top 3 about what I miss back home. THUNDERSTORMS

Couldn’t work, tv probably out, head out to the porch with a quilt and my dog, cuddle up and watch Mom nature spit a bit of temper.

Sometimes face would get misted or depending on direction and strength of said wind might force you to relocate



My god but that’s living


Enjoy Birdy and don’t get caught in a gully washer

Ain’t bad at all tho, a bit sweet, I prefer the Merlot. Liberty Creek Sweet Red is awful, like syrup, something you would pour on pancakes, mine went on the garden.

I just opened a new bottle of merlot. Same label.

I bet you got a real lantern or two around there somewhere. 🤠

We are out of tornado warning now! SH 71 closed just east of Austin airport from flooding.

My nephew you met works at the airport there.

I got all kinds of old crap around here, Neal. Even Mamaw’s coal oil lamps. Just too lazy to light em. Got my flashlight. Im good

Keep your powder dry 🤠

Always Neal!

One of my favorite things is setting on the porch watching a storm roll in.

‘long as he shoots from inside the house he’ll be fine.

Had the opportunity to sit in a hottub on a balcony in Ixtapa Mexico drinking cocolocos watching a hurricane roll in off Pacific.

👍👍👍

LOL. Good one Mike.

Second storm is getting bigger now. I’m getting hammered. Looks like some good sized hail in it too. Sounds like cannon fire around here at the Ranch. Hell of a show. 🤠

Clear all day till now. POURING.

Clear all day till now. POURING.

2am, and weather radar shows that big line of storms moving southeast out over the Gulf.

Holy kshizzle!, is the first weekend in May which means about 40 million migrating songbirds moving north across the gulf. My WAG is that at least a million or two are prob’ly losing the weather sweepstakes even as I write

Around my neighborhood it’s gonna be lousy with migrant songbirds, same as it was yesterday morning after rain overnight. But this morning?

I HAVE to get down to the Coast. When a kazillion desperate and exhausted songbirds drop down on the first land they encounter it’s called a “fallout”. Always hard to predict the magnitude but they can be spectacular.

Heading out in a bit, developing systems between here and there so it might take a while.

I grew up in the desert where rain was a really special thing, especially a good storm.
That was a long time ago now.
My kids when they were little thought it was funny that their dad once in a while liked to sleep outside in the rain in his swag, in the backyard, in the middle of a big city.

Woohoo! Power back on!

It rained 5” in 20 minutes, flooded roads and a few houses in Tomball.

Canta Forda ranch official rain gauge for yesterday. 5 2/10"
Pretty morn!

At least that would be interesting.

My rain gauge ranneth over in Austin.

We had it first.😀.

Lots of wheat was windrowed and curing for baling just west of here. Likely would have made 5-6 round bales per acre according to a friend who does baling for the public. Don’t do any good to turn it with more rain in the forecast.

Played hell with the crappie spawn at the lake I fish. Water level up and down from one week to the next. Water temp all over the place.

Old Artemus Nash told me years ago, after a big general rain like this, “ We have at times got rain in this country that we didn’t need. But, we never got any we didn’t use.”

We have at times got rain in this country that we didn’t need. But, we never got any we didn’t use.”

I heard that!

March 1st 1997, we got 10" in 24 hours. Washed away 2/3rd of our downtown. Hate to think about 5" in 20 minutes...

We probably got rain at the deer lease in Burnet

I guess I need to get the Texas sized rain gauge.

Sun is out, beautiful today

Liberty Creek, six bucks fer 1.5L, the official Campfire Merlot

How about this.... ya know that motorcycle club t-shirt I got married in on that other thread? The front depicts a Ducati leaned way over, the back a pitcher of beer. NBMA .... the Northgate Benchracers Motorcycle Association. Once upon a time there was this black leather-clad (head to toe, like Emma Peel), chain-smoking, hard partying, hard riding German Graduate Student we all admired. She rode a Ducati which she loved, and spoke husky English with a German accent and slept with guys and stuff. We were smitten.

So we formed a motorcycle club right there at the bar, appointed her president, drew her on her motorcycle on the front and a pitcher of beer on the back. To get into the club all ya had to do was buy a t-shirt (heavy duty 100% cotton of course) at cost in any color so long as it was black, no motorcycle ownership necessary. I think we had like 50 members at its peak.

OK back to birds....

This was yesterday, before the storm hit, 7:30pm over the school. Maybe 300 migrating Mississippi Kites coming back from Central and South America on their way up the Plains that just happened to run out of daylight over the West Side. What they do is circle lower and lower (real low wing loading) looking for trees to roost in, these birds were maybe 150 ft overhead.


i
Then 300 kites descend upon the neighborhood right in back of the school, pitching into trees in peoples' yards. Not many people took note, that's the way it usually is with bird stuff. This bunch flushed out of a tree when someone walked by.

While I enjoyed the storm inside last night I really enjoyed today hitting a gunshow and finding a couple of non-firearm deals then the car show in Boerne at Soda Pops. Now sipping martinis with my wife out back listening to axis chirps. A beautiful tonight.

Cool. I didn't know raptors flocked up like that.

Spring migration in Texas is really down this year, possibly a cause for real concern. By far the lowest numbers across the board I’ve seen in the last 35 years I’ve been here. Simply put; there hasn’t been hardly any.

It’s not just me. The legendary place for seeing migration on the coast is High Island, thirty miles east of Galveston. This high dome of land with its associated tree cover pulls in tired migrants coming in from across the Gulf after a 400+ mile flight over open water from the Yucatán. Some local borders drove there last weekend in April, right at peak migration.

At that time of the year I would expect to see more’n 60 species, seen by just sitting in one place in the woods for a couple of hours. In such numbers that finding them was easy.

Last weekend High Island was essentially devoid of migrants. Beating the bushes they saw like ten species, and very few of each.

The Corpus Christi area has likewise been slow. The coast at Corpus runs north-south and it’s too far west to pick up the numbers High Island does . Weren’t bad yesterday under fallout conditions, 37 species of migrants, enough to get my migration fix for the year. But again small numbers of many.

No Eastern kingbirds, just one Indigo Bunting. Shouldn’t be able to pick up a rock in Corpus without hitting one after a fallout this time of year.

It could be the prevailing south winds this year carried em all inland, when they have a tailwind they tend to ride it as long as possible, but I’m inland and I ain’t seeing much at all. Also we’ve had winds like this before and it weren’t like this.

No one’s saying the sky is falling yet, but a general sense of unease prevails.
.

The Kites did just that here last year. Cool as Hell! I didn’t see them this year. Weather may have messed em up.

Ya, about like that, except with more leather and a cigarette.

I just went back and looked. Mississippi kites were thru here last Sept 10th. Guess they were on their way out!

Mississippi Kites, Swainson’s Hawks and Broad-wings all migrate in flocks. Going south, Mississippi’s prob’ly catch a lot of high-flying dragonflies, which also migrate. It is believed Swainson’s and Broad-wings fast during migration.

Broad-wings, forest hawks year-round, depend upon late summer frogs and toads to fatten up before migration. In Central America it takes the ecological slot between the slightly larger grey hawk and the slightly smaller roadside hawk. Basically when all three require more prey during the breeding season, the broad-wing removes itself from the equation to access untapped resources in North America.

The Swainson’s Hawk, big as a red-tail but half the weight, is actually a grasshopper and cricket specialist. In summer they switch over to rodents when raising young. Red-tails, being heavier and stronger, can chase them off. But red-tails need perches to hunt from when it ain’t windy, Swainson’s can hunt from the wing whatever the weather so occupy open areas that red-tails can’t.

Some Swainson’s in San Antonio have switched to urban areas, robbing grackle and white-winged dove nests instead of catching rodents.

In late summer Swainson’s form wandering flocks looking for grasshopper and cricket outbreaks. They have to put on enough fat to last up to a month without eating. They go clear down the Andes to Argentina where they feed on grasshoppers and crickets down there too, still wandering around in flocks.

Who has it rough in Broadies and Swainson’s both are the young of the year. Just out of the nest, still growing feathers, and they have to put on enough wait in just weeks to survive migration. They start turning up dead or too weak to fly in numbers at the overnight stopover points in Mexico and points south.

Great info Mike. Thanks!

Did ya fugk her?

I don’t want to answer that because I believe you will start playing with yourself, or continue playing with yourself.

Big storm developing west of here. Getting ready for another round tonight.

Headed y’alls way soon 🤠

Just saw that Neal. Y’all take care.

Looks like it may split and go around us. Maybe 😬