Off to the first tee for an 8 o'clock tee time. What a gorgeous  morning!

It's been a beautiful week here in Lajitas. The nights are cool, down to 51 degrees this morning (!), the mornings crisp and the days a little bit less warm than before, into the low 80s.
James has been golfing every day, I'm still having hip problems so I'm taking some time off. Again. First it's my shoulder, now it's my hip. I'm falling apart, and I don't like it!
On top of that I'm just itchy, a bad case of 'hitch-itch', I'd say. Everybody on the blogs is moving to new winter digs and we're not. We're already there. I'm not happy.

 

Oh well, get over it, you say. And you're right. So lets take a walk into the desert shall we, it always helps to get me in a better mood!
It's still as beautiful as ever here, so there! Let's focus on that.

Like these pretty Fall flowers and the way the low morning sun lights up all the different grasses:


                                  

About a gazillion caterpillars of the 'hummingbird moths' (White-lined sphinx moth) that I showed in a previous post, have hatched from the 200 or so tiny eggs each moth produces.
They're hairless but have a "(t)horn" at the posterior end.


 


'When resting, the larva usually holds its legs off the surface and tucks its head underneath, which, resembling the Egyptian Sphinx, gives rise to the name 'sphinx moth'. ..... Right.


They have been dining from their host plants until they reach their full size (and at the same time their brightest green color) climbed down in the soil and soon will make their cocoon and become pupae.
Earlier in the season the moths would have hatched in a few weeks but in the Fall they won't come out until the following spring. 
Pretty clever if you ask me.


                  

This is what they'll turn into

Like I've said before I love watching the 'buzzards'. They're so incredibly gracious in the air and so clumsy on the ground. They love sunning themselves in the morning:

              

These two really cracked me up! I can't help but thinking he's flashing himself!

Waaaaah !

The skies have been so blue the last couple of days. Not a cloud to be seen. This pink Coral Vine growing over a pergola at the resort made such a splashing contrast I had to take a picture of it!

               So pretty, I'm starting to feel pretty good again!

And than there's all the dragonflies,  just look at this beauty:

As far as I found out this is a male Red-mantled Saddlebag

And big swarms of damselflies:

OK. Of course you want to know. How to tell the difference between damsels and dragons?
"Tell me, tell me!!"

Well, dragonflies hold their wings out horizontally and most damselflies position the wings vertically when at rest. 
The bodies of damselflies also tend to be more slender than those of dragonflies, and dragon's heads seem to be 'all eye' where as the damsels have smaller, more defined but bulging, eyes to the side.

There you have it, and aren't you glad you asked? ;-)

Common Blue Damsel flies

Going on all these walks makes hungry! Time to make an all time favorite; oatmeal chocolate (extra dark) chips cookies (with walnuts).

(I always have to laugh when people complain about lack of counter space. Try baking in an RV!)

                                       

I can bake only about 12 cookies on the smaller cookie sheets for my combination convection oven/microwave so I just freeze the rest of the dough and bake fresh cookies when needed.

Which is often. Especially when you have hitch-itch :-)

American Kestrel

                    
It's finally getting a little busier over here. I guess people have waited, and were counting on, some cooler fall temperatures to visit the Parks, but unfortunately we're having a kind of Indian Summer around here at the moment.
The mornings are much cooler, true, around 65 degrees, (love it!) but than the sun comes out and brings the afternoon up to a nasty, toasty 95! Oh well!

The Terlingua Preservation Society was very happy with the weather though since they were having their yearly Terlingua 'Shelby' event.
Carroll Hall Shelby (January 11, 1923 – May 10, 2012) was an American automotive designer, racing driver and entrepreneur. He was best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and later the Mustang-based performance cars for Ford Motor Company known as Shelby Mustangs which he had done since 1965.

The Terlingua Preservation Society is a 501(3)(c) non-profit corporation headed up by a group of friends who share a love for Carroll Shelby-designed vehicles and the Carroll Shelby legacy, in particular the very special part of the world he would go for R&R in his heyday: the Texas Big Bend country.
It is dedicated to raising funds in support of the Terlingua, TX, community, while sharing the Carroll Shelby tradition of automotive excellence and it does this by operating an annual event in the Big Bend region for cars designed by Carroll Shelby.

 

The event is largely a big group of people who love the cars of Carroll Shelby of all models, who get together for socializing, fun, ½ mile drives, slalom, meals, a closed road speed run of 16.5 miles and an auction and car wash from which the proceeds go to local Terlingua beneficiaries.

Can't beat this technology for documenting your event!




Although this is not really my 'scene' and I don't know anything about cars it was sort of fun to watch since the slalom races were in the campground right in front of our RV!
I'm just no fan of these kind of shows (cars, planes, etc) when they involve races or demonstrations. Too many accidents, very often involving innocent bystanders, and all 'just for fun'?

Now this is more MY sort of fun:
                                                                                       


My first American Kestrel (in the wild)! At the first sight of him I almost broke a leg in my haste to get the camera and get outside before he'd fly away. I misjudged the steps of the RV while running out and did my own version of 'fly like a bird'. 
Not as graceful though ... better leave it to the experts.

In hind side, I could have taken my time because over the last week he has become quite the 'regular'. He hangs around the RV, perching often in the dead tree next to us and annoying the heck out of my friend the Shrike who thinks that tree is his and his alone!

See the Shrike at the top right?

        

Isn't he beautiful? I know it's a 'he' because of the blue/grey of his wings. See what I mean:

OK, that was probably a little Kestrel-overkill but he's my first so you have to deal with it!

Oh, and look who are back?

It's the Crackle clan!

                                                                                                                                              
I haven't seen them all summer, who knows where they've been (somewhere cooler I presume) but they're back and it's so good to hear them whistling and 'crackling' again, especially when they all gather around sunset!                                                                                

Sunrise over Big Bend

The 'cooler' weather has held all week, which was wonderful, but the forecast talks about a 'coming back of summer' for the weekend and the rest of next week. Yak! I thought we were done!

So we tried to get an early morning walk in while it's still cool since we haven't done much of those, or of anything, all summer and we're sooooo out of shape.

Nothing spectacular, a moderate, short hike just outside Lajitas, on the Dog Cholla Trail which is part of the 25 mile Multi-Use Contrabando Trail.

In the early 1890s this East Main Trail was part of the supply and stage route that connected Lajitas and the Terlingua Mining District to the Marfa Railhead of the Southern Pacific Railroad located 80 miles to the north.

From the 1890s to the 1950s, prospectors blazed many of the trails in this area in search of cinnabar and Candelilla wax smugglers used them to smuggle the wax to American buyers.

The recent rainfall has coached some wildflowers into flowering (again?) and part of the trail was practically overgrown by grasses.

As usual (for us?) we lost track of the trail within a mile. Well, it might be us, but we feel the trails around here are very poorly marked.

Fortunately the terrain here is very open and we picked it up again shortly before we made the turn onto the larger trail that was bringing us back to the trail head.

                                           

 

Butterflies and dragonflies are everywhere. They seem to try to soak up as much moisture they can get from the wet sand and little creaks between the rocks.

                                           

The Ocotillos are looking almost fluffy now they've sprouted tiny leaves all around their branches.
They're as prickly as ever underneath it though!

Inca Dove

 

shrike

As I've said before, the wildlife isn't really 'in your face' around here but if you look carefully you find enough of it around.

I'm looking at a Desert Millipede there. 'Common after summer rains', my guide book says. Yup!

Funny how your mind works (mine, at least). My hip hurts a little at the moment and I'm just thinking I'm glad I don't have as many legs, and hips, as he!

I was really surprised to see these cacti flowering! Apparently they sometimes have a second bloom in September.

   

A different view from Lajitas Mesa as we hiked around to the other side.

Even closer to home, as in right next to the campground in the wash, I came across these slabs of layered Limestone or flagstone. Nothing special around here but when I looked more closely these were just riddled with fossils.

I had to tread carefully because the stone is very brittle.

 

       
Sea layers of limestone known as the Boquillas Formation (100-95 million years ago) preserved numerous marine fossils all over this area. It shows that Big Bend has not always been a desert land. Oyster-like creatures lived here during the Cretaceous Period. About 135 million years ago, this area was a warm shallow sea that deposited lime mud and housed sea-dwelling organisms such as oysters, clams and snails.

 

On my walks around the grounds I frequently pass this limestone outcropping and although I often find some buzzards sunning themselves at the top, this week I noticed someone else that calls this area home ....

It's a Rock Squirrel. Looking out over his kingdom ....

A big guy (they can be up to a foot long) and from the looks of him a feisty one, with that torn ear.

Just opposite of this squirrel's hill is the brand new residence of our brand new First Citizen Clay Henry!

 

Eh, yes, it's a goat! Remember these cute kids that were born somewhere around the first of the year and that were descendants of the original Clay Henry III?
                                                                


Well, they've all grown up and this summer one of them was elected as the new Mayor.


                                                                      


              
                                            
This is him his-self and behind him you can just see one of the of the horns and a black leg of his wife, the First Lady ;-).
Boy, oh boy, we've really gone to the dogs .....eh, goats, around here!

And last but not least (sorry, Judy) I baked these cute mini apple pies in a muffin tin!
I came across them somewhere on the web and think it's a great idea to each have your own little personal pie, don't ya think?
Very easy to freeze them this way too!