This hawk has been staying close to its nest lately and it looks to be guarding its contents. Sometime both parents a present, but today this is the one who stood up when I stopped to take the picture.
I thought it interesting how long the legs are on this hawk. I guess it got excited when I stopped by for a picture. Also notice the beautiful marking and color to this bird.
God did a wonderful job on the coloration. Just thought you might enjoy a little nature scene from the area. John Tucker
About seventeen years ago a Gray Cat that I had brought home , came to live out his life in my office. He had a habit of nipping at visitors when they didn’t pay him any attention. This is how he got to leave the house in the first place.
He adapted well to his new home and became a fixture even if he was bothersome to some. I made him some window boxes so he could get his naps in without falling out of the window. You can tell he was taking it hard when I snapped the picture.
He was quite photogenic when I ran out of something else to take a picture of. His days are coming to an end as he has quit eating, but just lays around the office flicking his tale when I come in the office.
He was a favorite of several of the old men who came by the office to visit. Some even came in looking for him before they had anything to say to me. His favorites were George Autry, Jack Hodnett, and Jack Layne. I guess he just missed them to much and decided it was time to join them.
Goodbye to an old friend that learned to be satisfied with what ever life brought his way. John Tucker
I have been walking lately trying to lose a little weight, or at least not get to big for my britches. It’s hard on a fat boy to really settle in and get the miles in needed. I was walking yesterday morning and noticed that the Wooly Worm population was on the increase. They don’t usually show up till in the fall in this area.
Just to make it interesting I started to counting them on the little track I walk which is about 175 yards for every lap. My first try was forty-seven. I thought that was interesting and studied on it the next lap. Thinking I might have missed a few the last lap I counted again. This time I was serious and stopped and looked close when I seen one. Usually their was two or three more that were camouflaged in the leaves. This Pigweed was getting eat up. That count was one hundred and fifty-one.
The good thing they were mostly going after weeds and plants that are hard to control. This mesquite has no problem with insects, but this year it may loose some foliage.
This White Weed was having trouble holding a bloom. It looks like these Wooly’s have taken a special liking to the flower. I don’t ever remember seeing a plant this far along without lots of blooms. Could this be a blessing in disguise. We can hope so.
Well this is my conclusion on the worm invasion. They seem to prefer Tumbleweeds, Kochia, Pigweed, Buffalo Gourd, White Weeds, Mesquite and Bindweed. They were on a few other plants, but didn’t seem to be hurting them any. That was my general observation, but they could get out of hand fast.
That’s what it looks like on the farm today, so take care and thank the Lord for the help withe weeds this year. John Tucker
The crops are really starting to catch hold and grow. This cotton is in the corner of a circle and it had a cover crop to help it get started. If you can get the moisture to get a cover crop it really helps to get the crop of to a good start.
This picture shows some pin head squares starting to develop. It was always considered to be the start of a good crop if you had blooms by the fourth of July. Glenn Lowe always said if you had a bloom by then you pulled it off and wore it to church the next Sunday to show off.
Gerold Laytons irrigated corn that was planted early has really taken off. It is about seven feet tall and tasseling. The golf flag is marking the drip irrigation outlet. They have to be marked with tall flags to keep them visible to anyone plowing the field.
This dry land field, that is Chris Kindles, is next to my house and is the best early crop and cleanest of weeds I can remember.
We always thought if you could get to the Forth of July the sand fighting and replanting was over. This year they are still working some fields, but they a catching up. I had an Uncle who was a nervous wreck each year until the 4th, then he would go to the mountains for a week to settle his nerves.
Thank you Lord for the crops and the good moisture this year. It looks like a crop in the making. John Tucker
When you are raised on a farm in West Texas a few things become part of you. Like waking up before the sun comes up and worrying about enough rain. We have been in a drought for three years and that has raised the anxiety level considerably. You learn to plan your day around watch all the weather forecast that you can work in each a day. You never know when one might give you a better chance.
The last six weeks has turned us from worrying about if it will rain to collecting how much falls. You always want to have your rain report when you see your neighbor or call old friends. This brought me to start thinking on how to build hidden rain gauge. We had been building a few new Birdhouses so I settled on making a something similar.
We had an old stump for a pedestal and I thought a small log house would fit right in. I had several of the cedar tree limbs that we had to cut down this year. They looked like prefect little logs to me. I made the chimney just big enough to hold a square rain gauge.
This is what it looks like with the rain gauge pulled out of its holder. This old Farmer is ready now for a big rain to see just how well it works. I’m planning on a good three inches to test it out. Ever the optimistic. John Tucker
Last week we planted a place to the CRP that was familiar to me and my family. It was the house the Sandra and Eliane Kenely grew up in. Now before you say anything about how old it looks, most of the old houses have fallen down and it still stands. They buried the house I grew up in and put an irrigation circle on the place. It only lives on in my memory. The Wildflowers caught my attention so I got my camera out.
Wildflowers bloom for a short time and are gone by the time you get back to look if you tarry long. The rain had really greened everything up good and flowers were doing their thing. I like the contrasting colors on these.
These Paper Flowers were in full bloom and are not usually seen growing as individual plants. They are always welcome in the flower patch as the retain much of their cold after they go to seed. They are used in lots of dried floor arrangements.
This a plant that has already made seed and the little white puff balls are blowing in the wind. It looks like at distance that it is white blossom, but you can see the empty heads that have already lost their seed.
This annual Gaillardia is starting to show color and is one of the plants that favors the area’s climate. It is not found too much further to the east in Texas and very drought tolerant.
Well that my report for the week. We continue to get rain in the area and not much hail. Sandfighters are being run nearly ever day somewhere in the area anthem weeds are growing by leaps and bounds. Thank goodness for Roundup tolerant crops as the weeds would take over the fields.
Thank the Lord again for the abundant rains and the good start for the crops. John Tucker
The old Bula School burned a few years ago, but the stronger part of the walls are still standing.
I kept going around the corner to show what is left. It is so sad to see how the old school building have gone into ruin.
I have a lot of good memories of competing against this bunch of kids that called this home. Later in college they became my best friends. Three Way doesn’t even have building standing anymore. The Ag shop, that was the last building built, is all that remains.
I was going to Levelland so I went back thru the country by the old Pep school. It had been renovated and was being used as a speciality school. I went on down the road knowing the old Petit School was on that road. It had become like most of the old building in the area that have been abandoned.
This was the other building and the windows were being knocked out. It’s structure looks to be fairly well in tack, but only the memories remain.
All these schools were real important to us in high school as we played them twice a year in both football and basketball. Pep didn’t play football, but track and volleyball was their sports.
Just though that some who live off might like to see what remains. John Tucker
We had a light rain this morning that put all the dogs in their houses. Things seemed to be quite enough and these two Antelope walked right up to the edge of the yard. You can see how things have greened up since it started raining.
The area has had at least six inches in the last two weeks and many have had more. These rains have come in about seven to eight good rains. I wanted to show some standing water, but it has soaked in pretty well right where it fell.
The farmers have been planting cotton “hot and heavy” over the last ten days and most everything has been planted. Some have been running chicken pickers over the fields to break the crust that forms after we get a good rain. Not to many sand fighter any more and more cover crops are being used where they had irrigation to get it up. It looks to be coming up pretty good and the hot weather forecast this next week will really make for good growing weather.
Over the last two nights Clovis and the Muleshoe areas have had large hail and some tornado activity, but no one has been reported as hurt. Cars have seemed to take the worst of it. Probably some roof damage will also be found once people get out next week to look around.
We have rain forecast for today and again tonight. It seems to want to rain more at night than it did when I was a kid. This usually cuts down on the amount of hail, but we have received some, but nothing that has seemed to hurt the crop.
Tomatoes are starting to put on a few in the garden and the squash are beginning to come off. Just thought I would throw that in as that is my crop to worry about.
Really things are really looking up for the Plains and especially the Maple are. Thank you Lord for the protection from the hail and tornadoes for our little community.
John Tucker
This past week we celebrated and shared with each other the amount of rain we got. This time everyone seemed to have enough to start a crop. I was walking out to the garden a week after the rain had started and noticed this green clump that had come up. When I looked closer I found that it was careless weeds coming up. Some had thought that with so long a drought that maybe the weeds wouldn’t be so bad this year. (Wrong)
I walked across the road where we had slung some seed to try to thicken the stand. It looks like we dropped a few in the same spot or each seed came up three times. This is White Prairie Clover and the wind and rain had piled it together.
The reseeding had been done last summer and the seeds were in little sand ridges. The dormancy had kept it from trying to sprout till it was wet enough. This is mainly grass, but a few weeds are in the mix.
The lighter green looks to be some sort of grass that all the seed stuck together for some reason. Normal Native Grass comes up as a single blade and lays over until it can establish a good root system that makes it a hardier plant when it starts to grow. Keeping it shredded along with the annual weeds gets it established by the second year. A shaded young plant has little chance of making it.
I saw lots of other weeds coming up also and it looks to be a challenging year for the Farmers. We’ll take the moisture any tine the good Lord can give it to us and be proud for every drop.
That’s about it for now, but look out for a big change to the plains everything is growing fast, weeds, crops and gardens. Thank you again Lord for the change. John Tucker
My Brother “Butch” Earnest Lynn Tucker, passed away a few years ago. I have fond memories of when we were kids and he was the big Brother, I followed him around always wanting to be part of that older crowd. He tolerated me most of the time and taught me how to hunt. In this picture he had just came home from the Air Force along with my Brother-in-law Bobby Carlisle. We always went hunting when we got together as a family. My Mother who was good to take pictures and she took this one. They had come home on leave or had just got out of the service. I can tell by how thin he was.
He was in Thailand during the Vietnam War. They repaired the shot up jets after their mission over Vietnam. It was so hot and humid he lost most of the weight he carried on his bones. I didn’t hardly recognize him when he returned home. We had kept up with each other in during that time by making tapes that were played on a little recorder. It was such a strange thing to me to try to talk to a machine and not the person. He would listen to what everyone had to say and then erase it. He would record what was happening with him and how things were going.
He came back to the farm before I did and was raising a family when I got back to farming. We tried to help each other during the cotton harvest, but I found my calling in the seed business and he put his land in the CRP. He later came back to help me during the summer months with Wildflower harvest. We enjoyed sharing our on opinions on how it should be done. George Autry, who combined for us, said that “we never lacked for opinions, it just never was the same one”. Ferris Locke was part of that so you can see it made for many interesting discussions. We were all sure we were right and each of us just did our on thing. It made for a lot of good memories as it was never a dull moment around us.
He was good to his neighbors and tried to help out where he could. He especially was good the kids that didn’t have animals for the annual shows. He bought some, and gave them away, and others he travelled and helped select the best ones. he didn’t pass away with a lot of money to his name, but I doubt the Lord was interested in that anyway.
My last visit with him was on the phone, and he was disappointed that Social Security had told him he had made too much the year before, so he was going to have to wait another year to retire. I guess he knew some way that if he was going to draw any benefits he needed to get started. It never happened and he worked hard right up to his last day.
He was always willing to help me no matter what kind of idea I had. You really miss that kind of confidence in what you are trying to do. Brothers are always special and especially those who put up with you when you were growing up. Rest in peace Brother I’ll always miss you. John Tucker
Why I Love West Texas 