Canyon of Thorns Devastation at River Legacy Park

I had to make a delivery this afternoon in Arlington. The details we need not discuss. I may have mentioned previously that my physical therapist, Dr. Layla, keeps insisting I do not get enough physical activity.

I suppose she's right. This morning I went swimming for a half hour, then around noon I spent an hour traipsing all over the Tandy Hills looking for an elusive flower.

So, with Dr. Layla's prescription calling for me to haul my lazy self off a prone position more frequently, I decided, even though I pedaled it for 11 plus miles yesterday, to go for a late afternoon bike ride at River Legacy Park.

Yesterday I showed you a picture of the Canyon of Thorns in the Prairie Loop section of the mountain bike trail. That is the Canyon of Thorns above. It was a thrilling thorn-defying section of trail. Why am I using the past tense 'was' word? Well, the Canyon of Thorns is no more.

This afternoon I was appalled, appalled I tell you, to discover that the Canyon of Thorns had been destroyed, mowed down in its prime. As you can see in the picture on the right, taken this afternoon, at the same location as the picture at the top.

Oh well. It'll grow back. Maybe

Is the Yellow Rose of Texas Blooming in the Tandy Hills?

After reading Don Young wax poetic about the Terrestrial Prairie Celestials, busy a-blooming all over the Tandy Hills, with an ethereal short-lived beauty, I decided I had to see these blooming purple things for myself.

So, with great effort, I hauled myself to the Tandy Hills today a bit before noon, as per Mr. Young's suggestion, that being that by noon the one day wonders begin their fade to death.

I hiked and hiked and hiked, up hills, down hills, across prairies, along creek beds, through forested zones, the west side, the east side, the north side, the south side. I looked and looked and looked and I saw not a one of the vaunted Prairie Celestials, not a one.

Near as I could tell I exhausted all possible places where this saffron-spewing flower might be blooming. To no avail. But I did see a new wildflower coloring up the Tandy Hills today, that being the yellow flower you see in the picture. The picture almost does justice to how bright the yellow of this flower is, as in they glow in the noon sun like neon yellow.

It is supposed to freeze tonight. I don't know if that fragile looking yellow flower is going to be able to survive a freeze. I guess we will soon find out.

Don Young's Prairie Notes: Celestial Terrestrials Have Landed

Visual and Verbal Poetry from Don Young....

Prairie Notes: April 05, 2009
Prairie Celestials, Easter Eggs & Plum Bliss

No, it's not a 50's sci-fi flick, but close. Prairie Celestials (Nemastylis geminiflora) have landed at Tandy Hills Natural Area but these purple beings mean you no harm. I suspect they began emerging from the Earth after the recent rain and lightning storms. They are now mature and releasing saffron-colored pollen from their pleated, purple petals to the bees and butterflies that have also invaded THNA. WARNING: Homo prairiens are particularly at risk of being overwhelmed by their startling beauty.

There are very few colonies of Prairie Celestial at THNA which also means they are very rare in north Texas. After a year of miraculous preparation, each flower lasts only one day. Please, show them respect and tread carefully around them. Viewing is best before noon.

Many other purple/blue wildflowers such as, Blue-eyed Grass, Wine Cup, Engelmann's sage, and even a Bluebonnet or two, are starting to paint the prairie. A spectrum of colorful wildflowers are on the verge of exploding in coming weeks. Stay tuned.

One of the advantages of living across the street from THNA is the abundant wildlife, including lots of birds, that often make our yard part of their habitat. We enjoy their company and help them out with a steady supply of sunflower seed and nesting material.

Starting about a week ago, one resourceful little bird decided to ... um, push the envelope on our open door policy. The following photos tell the story pretty well. This swift, but shy mother bird built her *nest so quickly last Sunday that, by Monday we had to get a new mailbox for our own use. (Note the snakeskin material used in the nest)

Resident bird expert, Tom Stevens, has ID'd the bird as either a Carolina or Bewicks Wren. She has dutifully laid six tiny eggs in our mailbox. Each egg is about 1/2" long. I'll keep you posted on their development.

A few days ago while hiking at THNA, I had the pleasure of discovering, off the beaten path, a hidden grove of Creek Plum in full bloom. For one beautiful, sunlit hour the Monarch butterflies and I had a profound convergence inside the blooming oasis. Here are some snapshots of my "prairie vacation". I hope they remind you, as they do me, of the duty we have to to protect THNA and other prairie treasures. We are Prairie Keepers and we are be born under lucky stars.

Come to the prairie and wish upon a Prairie Celestial before they depart for the season.

DY

PS: Prairie Fest is only 20 days away. Be there.

National Weather Service Freeze Warning for North Texas Tonight

I have not done as much shivering, as I've done this morning, since I spent an entire unfortunate month shivering in Tacoma last summer. I think it was Mark Twain who said the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in Tacoma. I may have the city wrong.

It was 37 when I headed down to the pool this morning, with the wind chill factor making it feel like 32. I did not think the pool would be doable and figured I'd quickly retreat to the hot tub.

I was wrong. The pool was a lot warmer than the air. I swam for about a half an hour. I think this must have lowered my body temperature a lot, chilling me to my inner core, because it is now an hour later and I am COLD.

The National Weather Service has issued a Freeze Warning for North Texas for tonight. I don't know how all the fragile looking wildflowers handle a freeze. Do they wilt and die? I don't know. Is this an unusually late freeze in North Texas? Again, I don't know.

All I know for sure is I am COLD.

The Canyon of Thorns at River Legacy Park

Yes. I am a creature of habit. I go from one habit, bad or good, to another. Of late going to River Legacy Park, to ride my bike, seems to be one of my bad or good habits.

That and swimming in the morning, which I did this morning in a cold wind, but warm, well, sort of warm water. Unlike yesterday, when it got in the 80s, today I don't think we got out of the 50s. Brrrr.

It took a couple miles of pedaling before I warmed up, a bit, at River Legacy today, around noon. Just like yesterday there were a lot of people biking, hiking and jogging the mountain bike trails. I hope the River Legacy powers that be are fully aware of what a good thing DORBA (Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association) has done for River Legacy Park by building these excellent, well maintained trails.

The entire DORBA team should get some sort of award or something, I don't know, maybe tickets to the George Strait/Reba McEntire opening of Jerry's Jones' new Dallas Cowboy Stadium in a couple months. Or season tickets to watch the Dallas Cowboys have another hapless season in their new stadium.

I saw no wildlife, again, today, except for some butterflies and birds. I didn't even see a single squirrel. Where have all the squirrels gone? I did get accosted be a damsel in distress who was in distress because she thought she'd had a worrisome encounter with a wild beast. As in she was pedaling along and stopped when she heard a loud rutting and oinking noise.

She asked me if there are wild boars in the park. I told her, yes, there are, and thought to myself how weird, I've been biking here for years, only within the last month did a guy tell me there were wild boars here, and then 2 days later I saw the herd, followed by another 2 days when Blonde Bobbi told me about her encounter with a large, single, male boar. And this damsel, today, telling me of an encounter. She was afraid they were dangerous. I told her I thought not. But what do I know? I thought bobcats were also harmless, and then that one in Arizona went on a rampage.

The Canyon of Thorns in the Prairie Loop on the River Legacy Mountain Bike Trail, as you can see in the picture above, is growing ever more thorny and treacherous. It's a risky, stickery chance every time I choose to take that loop. The Canyon of Thorns Prairie Loop is also the location where I was almost killed by an out of control pit bullish type dog last week, you may remember me mentioning. It is a treacherous section of trail. Many avoid it.

A funny thing happened today when I neared the Fun Town section of the trail. That's a special section of extreme, expert only drops and corners. There was a family of bikers, stopped for a rest. As I took the turn that went by the Fun Town entry I heard a little guy, maybe 5, say, "Look, that guy is going to Fun Town."

No, I'm not, I thought, Fun Town scares me. As I came around the loop, about 5 minutes later, I came upon that group back pedaling. They stopped to let me by and the little guy asked, all in awe, "Did you really ride Fun Town?"

"Yup." I said. Little guys need heroes. Even if they are bogus.

Oh Canada, Oh Canaduh

Last week. Or was it the week before, I blogged about some of the dumb comments I get, to this blog and to my YouTube videos. With the dumb comments usually being in reference to the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup or the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal.

I was motivated to comment about the comments due to a comment I got from a 28 year old Canadian calling him/herself diflorio007, in which phrases like "you taxas rednecks" and "how stuped they are" were used.

And then yesterday I got another YouTube comment to the same Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup video from yet one more product of the Canadian public school system.

This Canadian called himself (I know it is a him, or assume so, due to his name being Neil) ExodicSnakes. Note the exotic spelling of "Exodic."

Neil, aka, ExodicSnake's comment was...

"im all down for catcking rattel snakes but y do they kill them maby for food but ok kill it dont exploied the snake.. when thay milk the snake it is just useless they dont do it in a stairl invirement so it is all junk venom."

Now, Canada does have some different ways of pronouncing and spelling some words. Like they add a "u" to humor, making it humour. Stuff like that.

Maybe I have fallen behind the times and Canada has gone to some new futuristic, phonetic, fractured, abbreviated, punctuation-free spelling method, hence Neil's "rattel" for rattle and "catcking" for catching and "y" for why and "maby" for maybe and "exploied" for exploited and "stairl" for sterile and "invirement" for environment.

I dunno. Maybe Neil/ExodicSnakes is simply spelling challenged and the fact that I've received two of these type things, from Canada, in a week, is just a fluke and has no reflection on the bad job Canada may be doing teaching its kids.

Or, like I sort of alluded to in the previous blogging about this serious subject, could the bad education Canadians are getting explain why, in ways we can measure a nation's accomplishments, such as number of Nobel Prizes, America wins so many and Canada wins so few?

It is a conundrum that may have no easy answer.

In the meantime while we ponder that conundrum, below is the YouTube video that causes too many Canadians to sound so stuped, I mean stupid.....

Saturday Mountain Biking At River Legacy With Trinity Rapids

It has been the best Spring Day of 2009, so far, today. It is a bit after 6 pm and it is 81 out there, according to WeatherBug.

I went swimming at 8 this morning and again when I got back from riding the mountain bike trails at River Legacy Park, again today.

The mountain bike trail at River Legacy is getting really popular. And with good reason. Overall it may now be the best in the D/FW Metroplex, when you factor in accessibility, fun, trail shape and the variety of humans you encounter.

Did I mention it is scenic? Huge oak trees with a lush undergrowth that is slowly making its annual turn into a jungle. Without lions, tigers and monkeys. But, there are snakes, boars and armadillos, none of which I saw today.

In the first picture we are looking down on part of the Trinity River Rapids at the west end of the park. The river narrows at this point, hence the rapids. They are not a Washington river cascading down the Cascades type rapids, they are more a genteel Texas style sliding down the prairie type rapids, but rapids nonetheless.

Can you spot me pedaling my way through the jungle? Two of the pictures of bike riders are me. The other is a group of three, a mom and her two kids. Mom was one wicked wild riding beast on her bike. I was impressed.

I saw a lot of signs of rutting today. I thought maybe it was the rutting of the River Legacy Boars, but due to its solo nature I suspect it was the rutting of the River Legacy Armadillos, none of whom have I seen in a long long time.

There were hundreds of picnickers at River Legacy today, the smell of barbecue made me hungry. One of the groups was a family reunion. There were signs directing incoming to the family reunion. It crossed my mind to join them. I have been to a large family reunion. It would be easy to crash a large family reunion. Just act sullen if anyone asks any questions. That worked at my family reunion. That family reunion was in July of 2002. My worst week in Washington til a month in 2008. Actually by comparison, July of 2002 was a fine time, a totally fine time, totally glad I went to the bother of flying 4,400 miles to attend, totally glad.

Tomorrow I may rollerblade from Buffalo Ridge Park in Haltom City and roll my way along the creek to an infamous backyard, where if a family reunion is occurring, I may try and crash the party...or not.

America and Texas Are #1 But Not In A Good Way

In last Sunday's Parade magazine Virginia Senator Jim Webb wrote an article about the disgrace of America's prison system and incarceration rate.

America has by far the World's highest rate of incarceration. We have only 5% of the World's population, yet we jail almost 25% of the World's prisoners.

That is just embarrassing. Are we the World's most criminal country? Or as Senator Webb put it, "Either we are the most evil people on earth or we are doing something very wrong."

I don't think we are the most evil people on earth, I opt out for the doing something very wrong option.

As in putting way too many people in jail for crimes that don't seem jail-worthy. Like, as satisfying as it may have seemed to see Martha Stewart do jail time. Did her supposed "crime" really deserve that drastic punishment? I don't think so.

I think only those who commit crimes such as murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, rape, child abuse (of any sort), treason, vehicular homicide due to drugs or alcohol, and maybe a few other type crimes I'm not thinking of right now, should be locked up, many for life.

But, economic crimes, as in embezzlement, swindling, stock manipulating, being caught with marijuana, crimes where no one has been physically hurt, those crimes should not be punished with jail time. Big fines. Yes. House arrest for a period of time. Maybe.

But to take so many citizens away from being productive and making them temporary wards of the state is just plain stupid.

And then we have those convicted and jailed erroneously. Just last week, more than a dozen men who had spent, collectively, more than 200 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, went to Austin, Texas to sadly and angrily ask the state legislature to pass laws to improve eyewitness testimony, expand post-conviction appeals and DNA testing. And to pay more compensation to those wrongly convicted.

As former inmate Billy James Smith said, "I'm still not completely free. I'll never be completely free." Smith spent 20 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault. He was exonerated by DNA testing in 2006.

In Texas DNA testing has freed 36 wrongly convicted citizens. Texas leads America in the number of wrongly convicted people freed by DNA testing. Yet one more #1 ranking to make us in Texas feel proud.

So, we've got people in jail for very minor crimes. Like an out of control Robert Powell-like cop throws a person in the pokey for walking across the crosswalk against the light (happened in Dallas). You've got young kids, with ruined lives, due to being thrown in jail for being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with a lit up marijuana cigarette. You have all sorts of people, for all sorts of very minor "supposed" crimes, doing time, for no good reason.

And it's a mystery why America leads the World in number of people behind bars? One in every 31 Americans is in jail or on supervised release, such as house arrest.

What sort of hit does the economy take with this type of idiotic dislocation of its citizens? A certain percentage are productive adults (Martha Stewart) thrown in jail, their business taking a hit. Even though it's on a much more minor scale, a McDonald's working kid, incarcerated for 6 months, due to being caught with a drug, also causes the economy a hit.

Local, State and Federal spending on jailing Americans adds up to around $68 billion a year. That is nuts. We need a massive release of prisoners doing time for non-violent crimes. And DNA testing done wherever it may prove an American innocent.

Indian Paintbrush at River Legacy

We are slowly moving towards the point in time when Texas, well, my zone of Texas, looks its best, as in real purty.

Indian Paintbrush had sprouted up at River Legacy Park since my last visit. Along with Bluebonnets. The only wildlife I saw today, while riding the mountain bike trail, was a couple joggers and Blonde Bobbi. She must practically live on those trails.

My bike is 5 years old. It has over 4000 miles on it. It is a K2 Attack. It replaced a Schwinn Moab. The Schwinn Moab had over 5,000 miles on it when I broke its frame riding on the Horseshoe Trails. The Schwinn Moab has been my favorite bike, though this K2 is also nice, but it is getting old.

This week I replaced my bike's speedometer. The previous one had been broken for months. So, I'd been biking without knowing how far or fast I was going. But not today. I averaged 10.2 miles per hour and biked 9.3 miles. I went 2 times around. Til I got the new odometer, I did not know how far it was with all the new trails. I figured the new trails had added about 2 miles. I was about right.

The trails at River Legacy Park are getting closer and closer to being jungle-like. I like it. I wish monkeys were native to Texas.

Though the local weather record did not indicate it froze last night, this morning when I went swimming at 8am, there was frost on the roof. I don't know what else it could have been. It was white and it disappeared as the sun hit it. WeatherBug said it was 37, when I went down to the pool. The water felt warm compared to that icy air. So, I had myself a good swim. It is 71 right now with the windows open. Supposed to hit 80 tomorrow. We are at the Sweet Spot in Texas weather. Soon, the HEAT will arrive. But, I like that, too. I am very easy to please...

With Egg On Their Faces No More Krogers

I have mentioned before I do not like Krogers. Too many price mistakes. Over and over again. The last time I mentioned this, some naive sort, apparently not familiar with Texas, reminded me that Krogers gives you a refund if they make a price mistake.

Yes. Previously I have brought a mistake to the attention of the minimum wage moron who mans the customer service. I've actually done this twice. The first time the woman was so befuddled by what I was pointing out to her that I gave up.

I then wrote a letter to Krogers complaining about that incident and their horrible customer service and chronic price mistakes. About a month later Krogers sent me a $15 gift card. That sort of mitigated my aggravation. A little.

The second time that I bothered to complain was over a 2 for 1 pricing scheme that did not ring up as 2 for 1. Once more when I went to customer service I was confronted with befuddlement. This time I said, just give me my money back. And so she did, but she had trouble counting it.

And now to today's FINAL time of ever trying to buy anything at Krogers. Earlier today I'd forgotten to get eggs while I was at Wal-Mart. I needed them for French Toast in the morning. I remember seeing a Krogers special ad at the bottom of this morning's Dallas Morning News. The ad had a dozen large eggs for 88 cents. The ad also had mangoes 3 for $1 and red grapes for 88 cents a pound.

Since Krogers is right across the street I figured I'd take 5 minutes and go get eggs, some mangoes and some grapes. Three items. Krogers can't screw that up, I thought, despite having something screw up with Krogers when I've only tried to buy one item.

So, I pick up 2 dozen eggs. I head to the mangoes. They were green, hard and not worth 33 cents. I find the grapes. These did not look like grapes I wanted in my house.

So, I go to the self-checkout. I scan the first dozen eggs. They ring up as $1.29. I figure, okay, sometimes Krogers doesn't calculate the "real" price til you hit the pay button. I scan the next dozen and then hit the pay button.

The total did not rec-calculate the eggs at 88 cents a dozen. I looked for the person who manages the self-checkout lines. She'd run off. I was not going to pay $1.29 a dozen eggs, particularly after I saw the HUGE handmade sign by the eggs saying "Large Eggs 88 Cents Dozen."

I was not going to waste my time going through the buying process and then going to customer service to deal with a mouth breathing minimum wage moron in a futile, frustrating, maddening attempt to get my money back.

So, I just decided to walk away and leave the eggs behind. I don't know what happened, really, I truly don't, but as I went to exit, somehow, something snagged the bag of eggs and they tumbled to the floor. As I swiftly exited I looked over my shoulder to see some yellow stuff oozing out.

I feel real bad about that.

I feel so bad, I will never waste my time in Krogers again.