A walk on the Wild Side. Just beyond the garden lines, the confines of the garden fence is a whole other world, especially in the spring before they cut down the grasses and wild flowers. .
A walk around the back of the house last week to see the flowers and I find I'm a matter of hours too late.

They already mowed down the grasses and wild flowers that afternoon.
The little bit of wild countryside behind my garden now looking sparce, as birds sit and wonder where their nests went and the copious feeding stock of insects and seedlings, they lived on in the grass and flowers gone, and really all now very boring it all looks.

Our cookie cutter homes, our cookie cutter gardens, our manicured lawns and flower beds and prestine streets.
Give me the chaos of nature to stimulate the brain please.
















I look for the wild nature left in our suburbs and Master planned Communities, and long for the randomness of plants and grasses intertwined. Each has its place.Each trying to out grow the other for light, food and water.





I found some wild flowers and grasses along the edges of where the main areas of the creek had been mowed down.

The beauty of wild flowers along the creek, become weed in our flower beds, but there is beauty in the randomness and chaos as everthying stuggles to survive.

Nature encroaches everywhere if you look, and for me every little living bit is fascinating.


There are limits of course.
The 'Fire Ant insurgents' in my bed several years ago (yes not flower bed but sleeping bed inside), all had to die, as do their terrorist friends regularly when I find a Fire Ant nest in my garden. (boy did I have bites, many bites in all areas, the biting is what woke me up...ouch).

When gardening, finding your hand or foot suddenly covered with what you thought was bits of loose soil. Then suddenly, as if they sense that they have been spotted, all at the same time they pierce the skin and bite, pumping some acid like stuff into you, as you try to speedily wipe them off.
It stings and itches at the same time, and what you are left with are small red spots that if you resist scratching, they turn into white pussy spots and itch terribly for days and weeks.
If you do scratch them, you end up with open red sores that itch for days and weeks and can leave small scars.
It's a lose, lose situation, but there is that thing called revenge and a little Fire Ant killer on their loose soil mounds and if by majic that nest dies....
I now cover my garden each year with a preventative 'Fire Ant' killer solution.

Texas is one place where in the DIY stores, there is something to kill anything. There are more shelves full of various insect,vermin killing,and deterrant toxins available to purchase, than there are shelves of light fittings, batteries or bath fixtures put together..
Compare that to the UK where your lucky to find a general fly swat on a stick, let alone a spray bottle made to kill any one specific named insect.

Anyway Fire Ants are the 'bastard terrorists' of the insect world here in Texas in my view, and they deserve all they get.

The large red wasps get the occasional 'flying insect spray' on their nests before they get aggressive defending their young. I have been chased around the garden by several of these inch long red bug-gers that I accidentally disturbed in a shrub.
Hazel actually got chased and bitten once, and that left a mammoth red swollen sting bite mark on her leg.

The black Widow Spider in the back screened porch startled me a little being so close to where I sit and relax, she got sprayed and then I used my past experience as a young teenage insect enthusiast, and pinned her up and displayed her in the study until a year or so later her legs started falling off, and she ended up in the dustbin, taken away by the trash man.
She was a full sized Black Widow and commanded some respect from me, even dead.



Mosquiotes are up there with the Fire Ants as 'Insect Terrorist' status. Come near me and your 'dead' no questions asked.
After my walk the other evening I was covered in several spots of blood from mosquitos I'd squished on me. I spray myself normally before walking but forgot that evening.

The occasional large cockroach that enters the house ends up on its back poisoned through its feet, from the stuff the bug man sprays around the edge of the house.
Yes, I guess we are pretty toxic all in all....



On the more natural side there are loads of Lizards and Gekkos, and Toads are plentiful and help keep the problem bugs at bay.


The ants that live out the back of the garden along the creek are my heros.






These nests having been there many, many years are between 1 to 2 feet across and who knows how deep they go, or how many ants live in the colonies.
They cut down grasses in a circle around their nest and you can see tracks spreading out in all directions where troups of ants rush back and forth clearing out waste and bringing home food to keep the colony alive.
These ants would probably be viewed as a pest in the garden but should be praised as heroes in my book as where you see these, for many, many yards around no other ants survive they fight and kill them, and with the deadly Fire Ant around these large forager ants are certainly welcome and facinating to watch.

There is more birdlife around the garden than there used to be in years past, now that there are more maturing trees and shrubs and climbers, is very evident.
Mocking birds are very tame flying around catching bugs and then in the Spring at night they sit on the chimney and sing loudly down the Chimney keeping us awake.

They kill large bugs and unfortunataly also lizards, and pull leaves off the trees to impale their catch on the twigs, by way of storage larder. When dried out they come back and consume them. No idea why . I'd prefer fresh meat I think.
The red Cardnial is still a resident around the house, despite having fallen down the chimney once. (previous blog entry).

Lots of variety of other birds.
We also have Whistling Ducks, Oyster catchers, Herons, Sanderling, Night Hawks, Vultures, Red Winged Hawks, Owls, Egrets, Woodpeckers and Blue Jays.
Summer brings the territorial Humming birds.

Beautiful but watch and seen on many occasions one try to take nectar from another male humming birds favorite flowers and you have a mega fight on your hands.

Then there is the noisy hustling bustling Grackle. They line themselves up endlessly yet not quietly along the power lines and in trees at dusk.



















I'm convinced they are looking around saying to each other , where's a good place to shit , seen any newly cleaned cars lately?

or sharing stories of good target hits from the day...

" Remember that clean Jeep under the trees in the Wallmart Car park ? ...yes 45 hits in one evening, and 5 direct on the windscreen...sqwark whistle Sqwuark.."


Ever tried using windscreen washers on thet stuff, it's like stick glue.....smears everywhere....