My face is melting...

Naked pecans trees. One has a crow...or a raven.

Just in from a morning walk and thawing, slowly (so it feels like my face was melting as it warmed up). Our weather is all over the place these days - anywhere from 30s to 70s. I did not question DH when he said it wasn't cold outside. He had taken the dog on a short walk, but I wanted a longer one - to the park.

I added a light jacket to my jeans and T because I am always a little colder than DH. But only now, as I thaw in the living room, do I look and see the temperature is in the low 40s with a windchill in the mid-30s.  It's not bad on the way to the park, but climbing the hills with the wind in your face - well, that's just face-freezing, sneeze making, earlobe numbing COLD.

The sun is out and shining bright - almost no clouds in the sky. Oak leaves crunched underfoot. Our yard will need raking - red and bur oak leaves mingled in the yard and along the edges of the sidewalk and against the curb.

The dawn birdsong had given way to the mid-morning birds. And then there was the crow, or raven (I never know which)* laughing at us from atop a pecan tree.

Maybe this is why I cannot tell the difference - it's easy when you see them fly. Both birds we saw today were perched. Of course, as I look at the photos, it seems the birds are fairly large. That would mean raven.

A pit pixelated, but still...

Later we heard him or another just across from the park. We were in the open field between the creek and a business - looking for milkweed. Unfortunately, this field is well-mowed these days. It is unlikely we will see milkweed there again, but we checked near the edge of the creek. Anything is possible.

Whatever, they laugh had us, "Haw, haw, haw, haw!"

 We found no milkweed, but the poison ivy is making itself known. I try not to worry about it - I am one of the lucky 50% (who do not break out). But when it is in arm-thick vines strangling the enormous oaks in the neighborhood, it gives one pause. I don't touch it - I don't get too close.

Those are some serious vines on this oak.

Only a few green things out these days. And this little snail attempted to mind his own business. He was crawling along the scar of a neighborhood giant - old native pecan. The tree was damaged in a storm when a good third of the tree sheered off.

This tree was damaged a few years ago. I am still afraid it will not survive much longer. The snail ignored us.

Garden snail (?)**

Clover (wild oxalis?) still green - protected by the fallen leaves. I'll look at the bloom in the spring and I'll know more.

Zelda and I found two game trails from the empty lot down to the creek. She wanted to explore, but I vetoed that plan. Time to get home and warmed up.

 We finished our chilly walk having greeted 3 neighborhood dogs, but no neighbors. They were likely in the hundreds of cars passing us, our little neighborhood rush.


NOTES:

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ5iippq3rA
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9-wTnqIidY

** I just looked this up on iNaturalist. I am trying to be more specific with observations. Yikes. Who knew these guys had such a boring name. My name for them (in my yard) cannot be shared. I hate them - used to pay the children to gather them for disposal. http://www.inaturalist.org/home

A little drive, a little work, a little walk, and a little surprise (hint - deer!)

One requirement of certification as a Texas Master Naturalist is 40 hours of (qualifying) volunteer work. Our class is over on Tuesday. So we are taking advantage of many opportunities this week to finish 2016 with 40+ hours of "volunteering."

The first was stream testing today.*

We gathered ourselves, our gear, and the pup and headed down the highway. Initially we were "socked in." We feared an unpleasant drive (and cold damp day), but the ceiling lifted after a few miles. The sky remained overcast (and we got a few sprinkles), but the temperatures were pleasant for the testing and walks.

A little murky, mucky.

We thought we were a little early as we arrived at the park. Passing a couple of folks exiting vehicles on one side of the river (who turned out to be part of our "Stream Team,"** we continued across the river to Chandler Park, a smallish park that is part of Georgetown's 9 continuous miles of hiking/biking trails connecting parks along the San Gabriel River (North, South and Middle).  Additional (and familiar) vehicles were parked under the trees and soon we observed friends heading towards us down the path.

We walked down to the low water bridge just below a concrete dam and found the regular water testers setting up.

Looking downriver from the low water bridge (and the water was fairly shallow).

Upstream from our testing sight - the bridge and dam in the background.

Water gurgled at the foot of the crossing.

We were told the team regularly finds the low water crossing flooded, depending on rainfall as well as release of water from the lake not all too far to the west northwest.

Looking up, the naked trees against the sky.

We answered questions for the testing - time, temperature, temperature and "look" of the water (clear? smelly?), weather (overcast, windy etc.) and such. There is a procedure to follow and we did - led by the official testers for this site. The tests followed.

Today's Stream Team gathered on the bridge. [This is a well-used park. Joggers, bicyclists, and dog walkers regularly passed by.]

Detail of the testing.

This is SCIENCE, people! But there was room on the table to rest a Dr. Pepper too.

DH and I are not scientists, but we play them on Stream Team.

Detail of the testing, sans Dr. Pepper. I did not run any of the test. My hands are still dry and cracked - recovering from the clay.

As soon as the testing was finished (and there was a good deal of work I  will not show here) we bid farewell to our teammates before DH, Zelda, and I headed down the path a little to see what we could see. We needed a little stretch of the legs before heading home. And we thought we should investigate the site as well.

A man and his dog. Zelda was a hit. We also got some dog-training advise from one of the team. We were OK parents, but are lax pet disciplinarians.

We ended up walking along a creek/intermittent stream.

Creek flows into the river at Chandler Park. It is a pretty little place. Before we left we watched a woman dragging her kayak to the water. So, I suppose I should add boaters to the list of folks using the park.

More plants than water in the creek. This little spot could be an area of springs. I was fairly sure those were maiden hair fern in the middle of the photo, but the photo quality is bad and I wasn't going to climb down to the water this day.

This photo was to catch the nest in the top of the trees across the way.

I thought this was access to river trails. Access denied! This was decidedly not public (not the lock mid-gate). We did look and saw a tree house and other signs of humans beyond.

I'm always happy to see hunde toilettes!

We saw few creatures out and about...a few birds, singing (but refusing to let us see/photograph/identify)*** and some butterflies (that never stopped their flutter). I took a few photos of brackets, moss, ferns, and fall color before we climbed back into the car for the trip home.

A show of color along the path.

I saw these brackets from the path and scrambled over for a photo

Then I noticed they were growing the length of the tree on the other side.

A little blurry moss. This is a damp area and there were mosses, ferns and other low and slimy things growing.

 
Then, just around a bend in the road there was the family cry**** "DEER, DEER, DEER, DEER!"

DH is a good driver. He found a pull-over and we watched a herd of deer feeding placidly along the edge of the road. They were wild, but not too wild. Still, having been deprived of our walks down the dirt track near our neighborhood park (For readers who missed it: the road has been posted with "no trespassing" signs in such a manner that even these intrepid scoff-laws cannot ignore.) where the wild things are, we were glad to see these deer. We counted eleven does.

We leave you with the herd.

DH knows to sit back and roll down the window for a bad cell photo (taken between passing cars - note one caught in the mirror).

The herd mostly ignored us...

There were 11+ by our count.

They would look up now and again, but mostly kept right on eating.

NOTES:

* The other events are CBCs (Christmas Bird Counts! How fun does that sound?!!)

**Stream Team -http://www.meadowscenter.txstate.edu/Service/TexasStreamTeam.html

***This girl will be spending some time on the bird song sites [There are bunches - Cornell, Texas A&M, e-Nature....]

****We were raised on "game crawls." Everyone looked out a different window and whispered so as not to frighten the game. Now, however, one "deer!" sotto voce may not get the driver's attention in a vehicle with air conditioner blowing and radio cranked up. A louder cry of "DEER" (repeated as necessary) is better (and, with hard-of-hearing folks, yelling is best).

"Who did you meet, my darling young one?" A chicken, a rooster, a dove...

Black berries shiny with rain at the edge of the woods.

Oh, what did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
....
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

~Bob Dylan, from A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall*

Zee (our maybe nickname for Zelda - we'll see) and I headed to the park in a steady drizzle this morning. I sang Dylan's little song to myself as we headed off. It's been raining for a few days now and I am definitely tired of it...chilled to the bone.

It's as if she turned and said, "What do you want?"

All in all, we had a good walk. We were late enough that the traffic was sparse. We saw only a few doves, a rooster, and a chicken. There is probably a message in that, but we didn't stop to mull it over. We continued with our walk.

I know it's a bad photo, but proof of the rooster claim.

It is definitely fall now. We have just enough "color" to claim it. I love the yellows, golds, and reds - late as they are this year. If the red oak ever loses its leaves we will do a "last mow" and shred them as we do a final trim on the grass.

Some of the fall color in the neighborhood.

The pecans are fairly naked save the empty nut cases.

A few different types of leaves on the sidewalk.

Zelda seems to be coming into her own. She knows where the barkers will be.** And, now that this is HER neighborhood, she has become alert to the scents - tracking some for a block or more. And there must be some indicator for our house because she realized we were home and dragged me through the yard to the steps. No, it wasn't a "let's get out of the rain, crazy old woman" drag. It was a joy-filled, bouncy, "I am more thrilled than I can express!" kind of drag.

I suppose that is how most of us are after an adventure - happy to be home.

Notes:

*Hey, I needed to honor the Nobel Prize winner with something. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Rain's_a-Gonna_Fall

**She has barked 3 times now in a month. She has a nice bark, but I suppose we are just as glad she doesn't overly use it. We think she is becoming more comfortable and, as she feels safe, she is able to bark. I only wish she didn't feel safe enough to chew my things (clothing, one pair of shoes, some door frames...oh, and a magazine).

Our neighbor's "yard art" has changed once again - to holiday festive.

Who knows when to come in out of the rain?

Well, obviously we don't.

And the frogs were calling.*

We haven't had a chance to go on an "amphibian watch" since October. We knew there was one today at an unfamiliar (and more distant) park. We debated. We weren't sure we would have the energy - I've had a cold for a week and DH had already spent a good deal of time driving in the crazy (cold rain) weather. Still, we "geared up" (I wore 5 layers) and loaded ourselves and Zelda** into the car for the hour's drive.

We didn't need the sign. It was in the low 40s when we arrived and the temperature kept dropping.

We gathered with a few experienced watchers and some fellow newbies. We didn't really expect to see any frogs and were surprised by one lone cricket frog at the lake's edge. We measured and photographed.

There were hundreds of waterfowl. I really have no idea. Now I am thinking, maybe American coots as they were seen there in great numbers recently. We also saw a Great Egret fly over. I did not see it land (or I would have been over there trying for a bad cell phone photo).

We headed down to the lake - a soil conservation lake.

We heard the cry, "frog" and gathered at the edge of the lake. KM chose to catch the frog in her hands instead of trying a net.

It was a Blanchard's cricket frog. They are so tiny.

 

People, it was cold. It was wet.

It was almost full dark when the last of the watchers came up from the water.

Half of the group had moved to the parking lot where we listened for  and at the parking lot wondering where the rest were. They had walked the length of the shore and were heading back...flashlights showing the way.

One tired puppy in the back of the car (with some of our gear). She did well on the trip. Our plan is to take her when it is appropriate. We took her today as she has spent so much time indoors because of the weather and she was inside most of the morning. Walking with her on a leash is not conducive to even bad cell photos. She kept finding the most fascinating scents and wanted to follow them all.

We returned home happy, but more than a little worn-out.

NOTE:

* Actually, the frogs were not calling. We heard nary a one. We had hoped to hear some Strecker's Chorus Frogs in a nearby pond, but they were smarter than us and were in out of the rain. We will try again.

** Zelda needs a coat and I have looked all over the Internet for a good dog fleece/jacket so that Zelda girl is more comfortable this winter. I found a life jacket too - something for summer boating/river running. Stay tuned.

Final Note: Some day I may have to post all the hunde toilettes I have observed. This one was conveniently located by the human restrooms.