They're back......

The baby barn swallows that began their feathered lives in the nests around our porch have started to come back in the last couple of days. I saw two of them last night.... one was near the nest by the kitchen windows, and another was perched right in his nest on the front porch column. This has happened every year.... the adult barn swallows either build their nests or have claimed a nest that's already there..... they lay the eggs and sit on them till they hatch..... out come the babies.... back and forth go the adults with the care and feeding of those big yellow beaks.... they learn to fly right in our yard (I keep Gatsby inside the house during those first days).... the birds all fly to parts unknown once it gets too hot here in the hills..... and then the now-adult baby birds return here to their starting-point nests to start the process all over again.

I don't know where all the barn swallows go...... probably further north where the temperatures aren't over 100 degrees for three months running. And how in the world do they know where to come back to? Do they honestly recognize the property and the house? (Turn left at that big pecan tree near the pond....) I wasn't the only one who noticed that the barn swallows have returned... Gatsby was out on the porch last night and looking up at the top of the porch columns...... looking down was one of the baby birds. I'm sure that Gatsby was trying to figure out a way to propel himself up towards the porch roof.

Speaking of Gatsby... he is no longer afraid of Houdini and Bluebell (the parakeets). Either Gatsby has been to see The Wizard and received new found Courage, or he has come to his senses and concluded that two colorful little parakeets in a cage cannot possibly do him any harm. This afternoon while I had the birds' cage out on the table on the back porch, along came Gatsby and he jumped right up on the table and was sitting there, just staring at the parakeets. ("Let's see.... I'll have the blue one for lunch... the green one for dinner....")

I went out to the porch and told Gatsby to Get down! Get down! Get the heck down!.... which he did.... and then he went out on the deck in the backyard and sulked for two hours. When he decided to come up on the porch again, he came straight to the back door and ignored Houdini and Bluebell. I still wouldn't trust him out there anymore with the cage. Not only am I the 'cat police' but now I'm the 'bird police' as well.

The last couple of days have been glorious..... warm but not broiling.... sunny but not broiling... summery but not broiling. The Weather Gods have definitely turned off the broiler and given us the kind of weather that makes you stop whatever you're doing, look out at the endless views, and tell yourself that even with the snakes and the drought and the heat and the non-stop wildlife adventures, you're thankful to own a substantial piece of property in this part of Texas Heaven.

Speaking of snakes..... my husband and I went walking this morning..... enjoying the weather... talking about the past couple of days.... I had my little clippy-picker-up-thing and I was picking up bits of trash along the way (some people are still such slobs)...... and then I see my husband looking down at the ground and he's starting to say "Look out! Don't move! Stay right there!" -- but before my mind could register all of that, I had just kept walking.... and I stepped right over a coral snake. (For those not living in this snake-infested state--- a coral snake is deadly. It's pretty-- red and yellow and black, and it looks like a beaded necklace on the ground.) Thankfully, this was a baby snake.... and (more thankfully) it was dead.... a car had run over half of it so the first six inches were as big around as your little pinkie... and the second six inches were as flat as cardboard. Coral snakes don't get all that big, and in order to bite you, you'd have to be out walking barefoot (as if...)-- but their bites are poisonous. (Translation: you could die.) I don't think I'm really 'getting used to' the snakes up here, but I didn't get too too crazy when I realized how close I was to that snake. Okay, I got a little crazy, but not too too crazy.

Walking is getting to be not only an Olympic event here, but an obstacle course as well...... you've got to look sideways for snakes, up in the trees for snakes, and now you've got to look down on the road for snakes. The week before last while I was out walking by myself, there was a curled up Copperhead on one side of the road....... needless to say, I stayed on the other side of the road and just kept my eye on that thing till I was way past it. On the way back, the snake had uncoiled and gone on its merry way. Had that happened a year ago, I would have immediately turned around, run home, and then locked the doors when I got into the house and probably stayed inside for the rest of the day.

I told my husband about the Gypsy Prom idea....... he wasn't as thrilled about it as I was.... suggested that I do it, but let it be a 'girl thing,' maybe an afternoon tea..... rather than having it in the evening so all the guys would have to dress up in their best denim and escort their gypsy-prom-dressed wives. I told him that having a Gypsy Prom Tea was a better idea anyway. Men... they just don't know how to have fun.