We’re supposed to put 1000 miles on our new truck before
towing so we decided today would be a good day to get some miles in.
Our place is in the beautiful Texas hill country. Since the area north of us has had the most
rain and road closures, we headed south west toward Uvalde. Uvalde is about 70 miles from the Mexico
border. There are many enormous ranches
along the route we took, some with very pretty entrance gates.
This area has also gotten plenty of rain and the creeks and rivers were running full.
Luckily, this is the only low water crossing we came to that still
had water. The water was about 6" deep and wasn't flowing, so we crossed safely.
This area is definitely cotton country! We hadn't seen round bales of picked cotton like this before, but they seemed very popular here.
We had planned on stopping at the Uvalde National Fish
Hatchery. We like to visit fish hatcheries. We’ve volunteered at a couple of them and are
always interested in how different hatcheries operate.
Unfortunately, this one was closed on Saturdays!
Since our main goal today was to put miles on the truck, we
weren’t too disappointed. Our next stop
was Cooks Slough Sanctuary and Nature Park.
Cooks Slough is a water recycling center that treats waste water before
discharging it into the Leona River about 10 miles away.
There are more than 2 miles of hiking trails on these 25
acres of wetland.
We didn’t see a lot of variety in birds but the few we
did see were outstanding! Our very first bird was a Vermillion Flycatcher. You've pretty much got to come as far south as Texas to find this beauty.
After flying from the post to a tree, it gave us great looks at it's outstretched wings. They look almost transparent in this picture.
While not nearly as colorful, this Lincoln's Sparrow reminded us that sparrows are on their way to Texas for the winter!
We found ourselves surrounded by butterflies. There were hundreds of Bodered Patch butterflies. This tropical species makes it way up into Texas and seemed to like this habitat a great deal.
Many of them were paired off and mating. Can you see the smaller male behind this female, with his abdomen curled up to touch hers?
We also noticed hundreds of caterpillars. We think that these are also Bordered Patch caterpillars, with the orange ones being older.
After a very enjoyable walk around the sanctuary it was
getting close to lunch time. Mark had
done a little research before leaving home and found a great restaurant to try.
There are lots of great plane paintings on the walls and ceiling
fans built to look like wooden propellers.
After lunch we passed many more cotton fields on the
drive back home.
Looks like the wildlife liked the rain! I assume the cotton was baled before the rains - what a mess that could be. Seems like it would have to be dry to bale.
ReplyDeleteI think that you're right. I imagine that was all picked and bailed before these crazy rains started. I wonder when they'll haul it to the gin?
DeleteHow do you like the truck so far?
ReplyDeleteWe like it a lot. There are a few different things that we're getting used to, but overall it is great. Can't wait to tow with it!!
DeleteI love the flycatcher.
ReplyDelete