I had an extremely emotional shower a couple of weeks ago. I popped in as usual but as I adjusted the temperature, I noticed a small brownish thing moving around near the handle. When I shower, mind you, I am not wearing my glasses so everything is out of focus. I figured it was a spider so I tensely showered while periodically verifying the spider was still there (i.e., NOT crawling on me). With extended arm, I shut off the shower, stepped out, and grabbed my glasses.

The big surprise: IT WAS A BABY GECKO! He was desperately trying to free his back-end from underneath the handle. No matter how I moved the handle, I could not free him, and I feared I was only MUSHING HIM MORE! It was TERRIBLE! So I ran and grabbed Rob who miraculously was able to free him, although he did lose a tail in the ordeal (the gecko, not Rob).

I set her free on a cycad plant

Now whenever I shower I think about her tail forever stuck, rotting, inside the handle

I recently was playing around with Microsoft OneNote, which I seem to have access to through work. I made a collage for this blog which I am including today. Let me know if this is easy to view or not, and perhaps I will do this more often. My first collage is restricted to Food & Drink Recently.

Speed Limit: 85 mph

It went by so fast I couldn’t get a picture of the speed limit sign

The last 4 or 5 times I’ve fed the pigs, I decided to incorporate some Pavlovian conditioning. While they eat, I play a particular sound, which happens to be a recording of Amy Lucas making a signature trumpeting sound.

Soon I will test out my plan by stepping outside, playing the sound, which should summon the pigs!

Below here are a few video clips and last is an image gallery!

Gallery below of recent hikes in the area.

Imagining Flash Floods

We’re having a hard time imagining water levels getting this high. At Pedernales the river was very low and we saw evidence of its flow about 16 FEET up in the trees (debris stuck in tree limbs from water flow).