Today I drove an hour to the northwest to the LBJ national grassland.
On the drive up, I saw a western kingbird, a scissortail flycatcher, and, in the downtown of the small town of Alvord, a bail bondsman's office.
The grassland itself featured cross timber woodlands, grazing areas on which longhorn and brangus cattle grazed, little fishing ponds, and lots of mildly wild country. I went on one trail on which I saw a little yellow warbler, the largest giant swallowtail butterfly I can recall seeing,
a huge orbweaver spiders called, prosaically enough, the yellow and green garden spider. Once some cows blocked my path, but soon they moved on.
I found one muddy patch, in which I managed to plunge my shoes both coming and going in cartoon quicksand fashion, but I plucked them out and all was well.
Part of the park was closed due to recent flash floods, and I did not scratch the surface during my hike and drive. I will definitely go back to the grasslands.
Viceroy butterfly, on its last legs at Summer's end:
It flew off quite jauntily as I watched.
I found the disappeared town of Audubon (named after the naturalist), which spent nearly 50 years as a vigorous little town, until the railroad passed it by. There was a historical monument about a roadside stop in the 19th Century featuring incredible spreads of food, displayed on a lazy susan. Today I was a resident of Audubon, if only for a moment.
I drove back through the town of Decatur, stopping at a city park named after a woman whose name escapes me. I watched robins through my binoculars. Then I drove to Allen and had pulled pork bbq for lunch.
I also filled out the forms for a copyright, watched college football on television, and rented the amusing film "She's Out of My League" by pay-per-view. We ate pumpkin natural frozen yogurt at Red Mango. Tomorrow I hope to go fishing.