Mice, Owls and Bulls... Oh my!

So after we dropped Charlie off last time we were in town, Halley and I finally began our own, true Texas adventure.

And it began with a malady off creatures. Halley had seen a large avian silhouette soar around and land in the tree of life when we were out for our nightly facial scrubs, so we decided it might be a good idea to take a stroll around the trunk of the big 'ole tree and take a gander up at the branches above...

Now lets take a moment here to back track to last week's entry when I mentioned an extremely consistent king bird whom decided it was best to wake us up in the very early hours of the morning. I can't count how many awful thoughts and words were thrown at this bird and even a few stones were literally thrown in his direction on a few occasions, but none of those actions were meant full-heartily but more or less out of lack of sleep and frustration...

Well, back to the stroll around the tree looking for a large bird from beneath, and there he was; just lying there as if the gods had answered our prayers and yet my worse nightmare. The poor, helpless little king bird lay motionless beneath the tree of life. I shall held my tongue next time when thinking such ill thoughts of another. Putting aside my guilt for a moment, the bird's death also brought about some questions: how exactly did he die? An owl? The windmill? Who knows, but I definitely felt like I had some input.

From the flying to the feasting. I don't remember if I have mentioned our little friend whom once made our propane stove his humble home, but we thought that his eviction would send him packing. I guess he's one of the chain yourself to a tree sort of fellas' because he's not leaving anytime soon. If you haven't guessed yet, we've got a mouse problem, but he's such a tiny, cute little mousy. And if you couldn't tell, he's one of those animals that just immediately evokes baby-talk whenever you see him. Well, we haven't been able to figure out his escape routes until the other night. I don't know if anyone has watched "Snake woman" on YouTube, because this is the mouse version. He is the king of contortionists among his fellow mice mates. Halley watched him, while she was lying in bed, make his way out of the most minuscule crack in the wall. His body just distorting itself in all which ways to squeeze through. We were very impressed until he b-lined it to the slightly opened lid of a large Tupperware container encasing all of our food. Well I'll tell you, that mouse sure does put on a show and then steals the seat right out from under your bum.

With our guilty king bird-killing consciences and late-night mouse shooing, the next release came before we could even put our feet back on the ground. Another release, just a few days after having our first one, we knew it was going to be rough but it proved to be brutal. the only incentives pushing us through the day were an offer from Brian to have the following night off for the 4Th of July festivities, and a real shower head, tile floored, electricity lit shower at the ranch house. What a way to spend a 21st birthday huh? Poor Halley, we were so exhausted by the time we got home that night we didn't even have the energy for a glass of wine.

It was the 4Th of July and we were hoping to finally celebrate Halley's 21st in style. After the morning shift at the site, we rushed home to put on some clean clothes for the out side world. (Well, cleaner than the rest.) We hopped in our truck and headed off in a hurry, making sure we didn't miss anything exciting on the itinerary. The drive seemed to take forever, but we finally arrived to Fort Davis to find the town bustling with people. We wanted to watch the bank robbery reenactment but were too late to see much of anything than the backs of people's heads, so we decided to hit all of the booths first.

Half of the booths were food and the lines were outrageous so that was our of the question, but I don't think I would really want a fried pickle spear anyhow. We then did a loop around all of the other tents which mostly consisted of extremely large, gaudy jewelry and lots of crosses. Crosses out of wood, metal... crosses on hats, shirts; I think you get the picture. I think we did more people watching than merchandise browsing.

There were quite a few people to watch, lost of interesting folk attracted to this event whom all seemed to be constantly eating, so we built up quite an appetite. We got some take out pizza and downed the entire thing and then thought we should explore some more. As we walked down the street we couldn't help but to stop and get a little ice cream. By the time we walked back out the front doors of the store we realized that there's no such thing as "a little" here. I guess that's where the phrase "Every thing's bigger in Texas" comes from. There had to have been a pint's worth of ice cream on those cones; incredible!

After eating ourselves to the state of nausea, we drove around in the sudden down pour to see if there was anything indoors of interest. We saw a little museum that said, "Poisonous snakes and other reptiles" and immediately pulled in. We walked in the run-down little structure to find two men at the desk in front. One, with weathered skin and a torn up old cowboy hat, stood up, smiled a toothless grin and pointed up with an ET finger at a sign above him which listed costs of admissions. We politely smiled and booked it out of there as fast as we could. I felt like I was in one of those Chevy Chase family vacation movies.

We deserted the reptile museum and we deserted the town as well. We ended up calling Brian, as we stopped for gas, letting him know that we would be back for the evening shift so he didn't need to fill in for us. He told us that he would stop by anyways just to check on the birds since we hadn't seen many of them lately.

Later that night Brian showed up and did a walk around the site. We cringed when we saw him bend down to pick up something because believe me, it's usually not a good sign. When he reached us we both took a sigh of relief seeing that he wasn't carrying anything, but our breath was soon swept away again when he dipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small metal piece. It was a band of one of our birds; 9S to be exact. She hadn't even made it through her first night out of the box. At that moment it was confirmed, we had owl problems.

Brian was just as upset as we were. He decided to stay the night to see what he could do about the current situation.

As we drove away from the site we started noticing a bunch of storm clouds rolling in from all around us. Lightning was already striking down back at the site and we worried a bit for Brian's safety; we knew that he was too strong-willed to have a little bit of life threatening lightning get in his way. We went to sleep that night, mourning over the falcons we had lost and hoping the ones we had left would be okay.

At about four in the morning my eyelids flicked open to a huge crack of thunder that seemed to consume our little house. I said "Halleeeey?" seeing if she was awake. A quick response of "A hunhhh?" "Let's go to the truck." I don't think anyone could have responded any quicker; Halley sprung out of her bed like a catapult and flew to the door.

We ended up spending about an hour in the truck occasionally being temporarily blinded by flashed of lightning that were so close we couldn't even pinpoint their whereabouts. I was eventually exhausted and decided it was probably mostly done with by then, so we returned to our beds. About an hour later there was another huge crack of thunder to wake me from my slumber, and this time Halley asked if we should head for the truck again. I feel bad about this now, but I think I said something of the sort that I would rather just die because I'm too tired. I managed to pass out right after, leaving Halley stuck in her bed, trembling with her sheets pulled up over her head.

The storms lasted until about eleven that morning; I don't think Halley thought they would ever end while on the other hand I enjoyed the extra hours of shut eye. When Brian turned up again that afternoon; we found out that he had been there, through the storms and all, until four A.M. He also said that he was sorry to tell us that he most definitely heard a falcon being killed during the chaos of the night. This would mark the beginning of the owl hunt.

Not too long after we bid good luck to Brian that two more white trucks pulled around the bend. It was Angel and Paul to join in on the hunt. When Halley and I went to the site that evening there weren't too many falcons to watch so the three biologists became our main source of entertainment.

We would watch them through our scope as they descended a rocky slope and returned to their individual pick ups. All three trucks in a line and all three men in the beds, postured in their own personal way. Then they corralled together for a bit, grabbed their weaponry and the three amigos were off yet again to hike up another rocky slope. As we took the quail down off of one of the towers we heard a POP! POP! POP! The deed was done.

Over the next few days the biologists were still abound. They spent nights calling for other possible owls, and morning scaling new territories where they might be skulking. Halley and I spend more time at site hoping more falcons would return but were only left with two males; seven falcons were assumed dead.

Our site visits are long and depressing; the only thing that seems to lift our spirits now is when the cows test out our electric fence.

Speaking of cows, I have one last short story that will hopefully lift your spirits. I was walking to the site alone because Halley had gone to the ranch house to make a few calls and pick up some more quail. It was muy caliente that day and I hoped I was hallucinating when I saw a massive black blur in the road up ahead of me. As I walked on, the blur morphed into probably the largest, bulkiest bull I had ever seen. We started playing a weird game of red light, green light. If I walked a few steps he would stop and stare, but if I stopped he would then start muscling his way towards me. It was sort of silly and laughable until he was about 20 feet from me and we were still playing. I strapped my chacos a bit tighter, just in case there was a need for escape, and started yelling at him. For a moment we both stood there and I pictured my own version of running with the bulls, which should in my mind be referred to as running from the bulls. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the big fella moaned and groaned, and stepped off the road making his way around me to once again return to the path of least resistance. What a bull.

Thanks for tuning in everyone. Hope you're enjoying the trees, the swimming spots and the nice long showers because I know we're already missing them. We'll catch up again real soon. I send my love.