Feathers here, water there.

The baby barn swallows up over the kitchen windows are just about to leave their nest. Just like their mama bird, they watch us as we walk in and out of the back door. They're curious and watchful, but they don't seem to be afraid of us. The baby birds are getting too big for all three of them to hide in the bottom of the nest, so when Gatsby is out on the porch, they squeeze themselves down into the nest a little bit, with just their heads peeking out over the top. I would guess that within the next day or two, their feathers will be ready to fly.

On any given night, there must be nearly a hundred barn swallows and sparrows in the pecan trees. We can hear them from inside the house, chirping and singing, and it sounds like an open-tree party out there at times. If we go out on the porch and walk down the back steps, the birds will stop chirping all at once and it gets as quiet as a church out there. When we come back inside, the singing starts up again, and I can see the birds flying back and forth from branch to branch. I'm guessing that the birds use those big pecan trees for sleeping..... so maybe all that hopping from branch to branch to branch as the sun goes down is their way of finding just the perfect spot for a good night's sleep.

My red hen Scarlett has decided that it's time to settle herself down in the nesting box again. Last time she did this was late Spring, and she stayed on her imaginary egg for 40 days. So here we go again...... I will have to lift her up twice a day, to make sure she isn't sitting on an egg from one of the other hens. I thought that a hen goes into this 'broody' stage just once in the Spring..... I didn't think Scarlett would want to keep herself in that hot nesting box during these hottest of days. Maybe she'll change her mind. Scarlett..... that hen has a mind of her own.

It has indeed been hot..... over 100 degrees for countless days and weeks now....... and still no rain. A tropical storm hit the Gulf last week, and friends in the Houston and Clear Lake area told me that they had some good soaking rains. We had nothing up here, unless you count the two rain drops that fell in our courtyard the other night after J and I went for our walk.

We were over at B & G's last night... she invited some of the neighbors over for home-made ice cream. The vanilla ice cream was served over a berry cobbler-type of cake...... very good, and very pretty in fancy glasses........ but it was so hot out on her porch that you couldn't linger over the ice cream because it would have turned into soup very quickly.

The neighbors who are building the huge pond with the island in the middle...... they were at B's last night as well...... and talking about the construction of their swimming pond. They plan to use it for swimming, but as of now aren't planning to line the huge moat-like hole with cement. It's a pond, it's a lake, it's a swimming pool....... it will be all of those...... and it will take thousands upon thousands of gallons of water to fill it..... and then they will have to hope that the dirt will hold the water in place rather than let it all seep through the sides and the bottom. They don't seem to be concerned. "It's only water!" (Pardon me? We're in the middle of the worst drought this state has seen!)

Oh well. To each their own. If they're going to be happy having the Texas version of the Suez Canal in their backyard, then so be it. The rest of us are just going to be keeping our fingers crossed that the filling up of that over-sized moat won't be taking away from the water supply for the rest of us.

Another day on the ranch.