Gator is King of the Treehouse!
Recently in Lions, Tigers & Bears Category
As most of you know, Ol' Dad and J like spiders about as much as Chinese Century Eggs. So it was with great delight that we staged a coup this week to pack up Fred and get him the hell out of here!
No air holes required ;)
"Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability... it is the sound of your death."
Fred was deposited up the road behind a fence. If he comes back, I guess it was just meant to be ;)
Living above Wild Basin has its advantages and disadvantages. Can you guess which this is? ;)
"Hello. My name is Fred. I enjoy long moonlit walks and ripping the limbs from small arthropods. My hobbies are sucking blood and prompting onlookers into cardiac arrest."
Fred appears to have taken up residence on the rock wall just beyond our front porch. J is currently investigating which handgun to purchase.
We had a major alert at the Tree House yesterday morning. Duncan, our friendly/goofy/sweet twelve year old Labrador Retriever was missing in action for breakfast! Anyone that knows Duncan understands his intimate relationship with food, so this was a big deal.
We assumed the worst, especially since tree house life involves coyotes and other things that go B-U-M-P in the night ;) We searched the entire lot down the ravine and up the other side to Der Gnome. We thought we'd either find him stuck somewhere or... worse :(
Luckily, after returning from a two hour search, he showed up in the driveway and trotted down to his room like nothing had happened. It turns out he had fallen into Lester's pond next door the night before. Lester found him crying and hungry and was kind enough to feed him and get him settled.
"The last thing I remember was that bitch taking me to a rave..."
After the ordeal, Duncan was treated to a steak dinner and a round of cocktails. Then we sent him off to the Crossings spa for a bath, facial and a deep tissue massage. The results speak for themselves!
"Phew! That feels better!"
"Who's the man?!"
"That's right, baby!"
She must've known we like to watch ;)
I want to pause the blog for a moment and give a shout out to someone who rarely gets credit for everything she does. Despite Ol' Dad's nonsense, this classy lady never fails to bop around the corner in the mornings with a freshly made cup of java and a French grin smile.
She's the reason Ol' Dad is sane, the reason Babycakes has any common sense at all and the real core of the Tree House. Without her, the whole thing would just fall apart.
Here's to you, Mama!
A Leo in her natural state ;)
The hot-as-hell Texas sun is making it difficult to do anything outdoors. Regardless, Mama and Ol' Dad spent a few hours resurrecting the landscape lights from the apocalyptic electrical storms of the past two months.
The temperature climbed to 103 degrees by afternoon so we didn't last too long. Still, there were a few other creatures stupid brave enough to be out and about.
It's hard to tell from the photo but this may be the psychotic Whippoorwill that entertains us in the evenings.
A close-up of the horizon just after the atomic-orb-o'-plenty has retired for the evening.
Doesn't the orange-red glow make you yearn for a nice glass of wine and a Zagnut?
Yet another success story on the fixit front.
We should start calculating the ratio of four-legged to two-legged visitors ;)
We spotted this well fed frog outside the front door this evening.
Unfortunately for Mr. Ribbit, this Black-Necked Garter Snake is probably waiting for him in the bushes. We spotted him earlier today through the master bathroom window.
Babycakes came upon a pretty exciting find this afternoon - a Dung Beetle hard at work. I didn't have the heart to tell it that Duncan is a vegetarian ;)
Dangling precariously from the living room window, a lone Stick Bug checked out the interior of Austin Tree House this afternoon.
They don't move too quickly, so I suspect he'll be there for a while ;)
Today's landscaping uncovered some cool new rocks around the Magnolia tree.
Yet another place for the wide variety of Texas snakes to take up residence.
Over the weekend we encountered our first snake of the season.
We did what any person with an ounce of self-preservation (and beer) would do.
The remnants were officially classified as boot fodder.
Turns out the little bugger was a Texas Rat Snake. Although this one was a youngster, the adults can grown up to seven feet long (!) and are apparently very adept at scaling walls.
Although they are quite useful for dispensing with mice and rats, they have a nasty temper. That probably wouldn't have mixed too well with our six year old, so in the long run it was worth the hit to our Karma.
The deer were playing on the hill during breakfast the other morning. These images and the smell of crisp organic bacon are now forever associated in our consciousness.
The deer of West Lake Hills are always interesting and do not feel at all compelled to follow the nocturnal ways of deer in other parts of the world.
Live free or die!
We've struggled with the best way to open this blog for the past several days. Well, here it is at last. A tale of mystery. A tale of intrigue. A tale of forbidden passion...
We've been carefully observing our Sea Monkeys sexual exploits. They seem to be very committed in their reproductive habits and are capable of keeping the action going for weeks at a time. One poor female has been swimming around with the male's dead carcass attached!
The magnificent splendor and glory of unbridled Sea Monkey passion.
