Wildlife

We had two exciting Texas experiences before Christmas.

First, I spotted the cat dragging something larger than usual across the yard. I mentioned it to the electrician who was working on the house, who said, "Does it look kind of like a dinosaur?" I said yes. He said "That's a Horny Toad". And it was. A huge kind of lizard quite rare in Texas. It's scales are beautiful - almost like feathers. Fortunately, Ollie the Texas Cat only scratched its leg from what we could see. And we were able to photograph it.

The other really cool thing happened as part of Phil's engineering and flood control project, which has just about finished. The embankment on the far side of the pool is now grown in with random grasses and weeds, and we intend to plant a border of Native Plants, as they are most likely to survive the difficult weather and terrain. But while scrounging around for rocks, he found this:

Cantelope!! growing wild. Or semi-wild, as they must have been dropped by an animal or lost garbage. There were three melons and we ate 2 of them and they were perfect! I can't wait to see what I can grow with a bit of nurturing!