Fronton, Chapeno,Salenino June 15, 2012

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Starr County June 13, 2012 photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Banded White-winged Dove In Victoria

 

 

 

Gourds Are Fun To Grow

 My dad loved to grow bird house gourds.  I tried it a few times with marginal success, but this year they seem to be thriving.  One can not expect a lot of quality gourds per vine but I would be happy to get, 3 or at least two.  Once the female flowers are properly fertilized the fruits grow incredibly fast, but this is not a plant for those wish quick results.  The gourds will grow to a stopping point but will continue to remain green for a long time as the seeds develop.  Growing Gourds requires 100-110 days, fairly regular water, good sun and soil.  And even after the stem turns brown and dies, the picked fruit will require another 100 days to slow cure.  It will be ready for your projects when the seeds rattle inside.  Much more info can be found online.   Some of my vines , like the one above, are almost 20 feet up into the trees...Yes they require a lot of support.   Gourds that do not hang freely will not develop the traditional bird house gourd shape.

  I grow another gourd, a completely different kind.  Not for any purpose than for its ornamental value.  This is the Texas native known as Balsam Gourd ibervillea lindheimeri.  I have this vine growing in several locations and this year they are sporting loads of scarlet red fruit that are a bit smaller than a ping-pong ball.

When I moved here I did not have any and wanted them badly so instead of trying to grow them from seed, I dug up one of the large tubers of this perennial plant.  That turned into a big task as it was growing in Hill Country hard caliche mixed soil and rock.  The tuber was the size of a large potato.  I planted it in a sunny spot with lots of brush for the vines to grow on and Walla!...the next year it grew and produced a few fruit.


  The flower are interesting and showy as well.  For propogation , the fruit must be ripened to the point that it almost is about to rot.  The seeds can be extracted, dried and planted, but all I have done is to merely toss the ripe fruits in various place and allow nature to raise and nourish them.  The plant is extremely drought tolerant and even during 2007-2011 drought I never watered any a single time and they still produced fruits.

  I occasionally find that birds had pecked into them but I do not know which birds those might be. 

  The fruits are not edible, I have tried them, but I do not think they are poisonous either.  Just a neat native to have around Provides summer color even when droughts stifle even the most hardy of wildflowers.

Bastrop State Park forest 9 months after the fire

These photos were taken this morning in one of the worst hit areas of the Bastrop State Park fire almost 9 months later.  The incredible amount of new growth is just a wonder to see, especially since my first visit when there was nothing green at all to be found anywhere.   It boogles the mind.  What is truely amazing are the forests of Pokeweed, huge forests of it, much of it taller than I.  Oh if I only had my bacon and a bucket  eariler in the season!  Some very interesting plants are sprouting, and some of them are complete strangers to me.  I gave up on trying to ID the numerous grasses  I just had no clue about.   Here are a few photos of really odd plants we found.  I was with Byron Stone this morning whom you shall see in a photo below.  The photo above is ofRattlesnake master and is about 3' high

Here is a close up of the un-opened flowers of that plant.

This small patch of what appeared to be a small agave was far back in the burn. Manfreda maculosa, it the the sole host plant for the near extinct butterfly the

Manfreda Giant-Skipper
Stallingsia maculosus

This Skullcap (?) is one I do not recognize

Dr. Birdie at an old pickup in the forest...Note  the Poke Berry forest that has surged into being....None of this was here in March


And finally this 2' tall clump of a composite that was just brillant!...I thought at first it was Ironweed but the very narrow leaves and larger blooms left me wondering.

 

Oklahoma Ranch after the drought

View across the South Pasture

These pecans were planted as 2 ft. saplings in 1978 then grafted with improved varieties a few years later...I remember digging the post holes for them.  These are 40-50' tall now,  Note the splendid clover crop this season.

This persimmon has been producing fruit for at least 55 years.  It is the largest one I know of locally.

Orange Milweed, is disappearing in the area due to intensive mowing practices

A view of the old house across a meadow filled with legume pasture

Cassin's Kingbird in Kinney County

 

This kingbird was found in far northern Kinney Co this morning where there are many text book Westerns.  This not only behaved differently but was calling differently.  The tails was very dark to almost black but appeared very short due to the undertail covers.  The short undertail coverts as shown are not an artifact of the angle the photo was taken...They were long.
If there were white margins to the outer rec.s I could not see them in flight....These are the best photos I could get before an Ash-throated of equal size chased it off. Comments from many, some that know the species far better than I, concur this is indeed a Cassin's Kingbird.  A bird that is likely not only a county but regional  first record.