Now that’s a lot of birdies on one feeder! I know it’s pretty hard to see but there are birds on the hanging branch to the right also. They just love the thistle seed! I counted about 10 or 11 on the feeder once. They are all Goldfinches and Lesser Goldfinches.

There is usually a little scrap that breaks out between them, followed by a lot of angry chirping when another finch tries to squeeze into the crowd. They always make me laugh.

A Summer Tanager in the bird jacuzzi. What a rare sighting. At first I thought it was a cardinal, but then I saw that he did not have the same beak and he did not have the tuft on his head. How cool is this!! Summer Tanagers eat bees and wasps almost exclusively. When having caught a bee it will remove the stinger before eating it by rubbing it in a branch.

It’s a terrible picture, but he flew off right after this one. I guess he doesn’t like all the publicity.

Rain!!! All of one 0.04 inches of it! Not much but… how wonderful. They say we have a small chance of another couple of showers tomorrow, and I hope it’s true.

The air actually smelled of wet dog because all the dying vegetation is now damp and the smell is …well… pungent.

We got to finally test out our water collection system and all is well, except for one gutter which is set to flow the wrong way and is leaking out onto the ground. So we gave the gutter dude a call and he’s coming out, thank goodness.

Leaky gutter. Must fix soon. Every drop counts when it's been this dry.

It was great to hear the rain fall into our tanks, and I am so eager to hear more of that lovely dripping sound. Outside the house – of course!

It was significantly cooler today 94 instead of the 105 degrees. So I was outside giving my plants a much needed dose of compost, green sand with mineral salts, and some organic fertilizer. For good measure I watered them with some liquid molasses, which is good for drought stressed plants as it quickly stimulates the microbes in the soil and gives an indirect benefit to fertility of the soil. That was before the rain came. Now they are basking in rain drops.

A dazzling water lily blossom in my small pond in the back garden. Her fragrance is lovely too!

An appreciative Yucca

It’s been so hot and dry in Central Texas that lately all sorts of wildlife is coming to the back yard to take a sip of water and cool off:

Fox taking a sip.

A Gray Fox taking a much needed drink from the fountain. Skinny little fella. We see him almost every night browsing around the bird feeders looking for anything edible.

A roadrunner makes his way every morning to the bird bath for a sip too. I apologize for the terrible picture, but he really doesn’t like to stay around too long.

A lucky picture as he runs by the window.

I was so excited to find a tarantula burrow on the east side of my yard.  2 days after finding her, I saw that she had molted and discarded her old exoskeleton out of her hole. At first I thought it was the remnants of an unfortunate cricket, but then I saw the leg casings and the body and realized this is the old skin. With the skin she also threw out a lot of soil. I guess she’s expanding her living quarters to make room for her growing body.

Terry our resident tarantula – a bit camera shy. But still sitting right at the front of her burrow stalking anything that may wander by.

And a toad sitting near a container of water plants – hoping for some rain, I’m sure.

So the folks finished the construction this afternoon. The price tag came out below the quoted amount! They did a great job! It was time to set the spider free. I watered in the dust and cleared out the hole that Matilda had built . It was a bit destroyed and I had to do some reconstruction. At dusk we carried out the container she was in and scooped her out into her area. I think she had no idea where she was because she just panicked and ran to the edge of the water tank. We herded her back to the hole and left her there to calm down.

When I went to check on her about an hour later she was just hanging outside of her hole. I hope she makes it. We did the best we could so it’s just a wait and see kinda thing.

The spiderlings have hatched and are hanging out on mom's back.

A week later and the babies have hatched and what a great mom Matilda is! Our wolf spider with all her young on her body. It’s quite a creepy sight seeing her body move as the little ones crawl around for a better position. I watched them climb down mom’s legs to explore and then go right back up to her again. She’s like a spider RV for the kids.