Ranch Ramblings: Day Three

I'm not a morning person, but by 7:30am nature was tapping at my window to come explore and I listened.  I powered up with some Cheerios & coffee and was on my way. 

I hiked up to the cliff tops that overlook the cabins taking important, life-changing photos like this one…

"Reach for the sky little cactus!"

When all of a sudden, I look up over the valley to see this…

Hmmm…they're probably just burning brush, I think.  But what if they're not.  It's always a little disconcerting to see a raging fire in the same frame as a family home.  What if it's an unreported, out of control wildfire and if I don't alert someone the entire Hill Country will be decimated?  I don't want to bear that burden.    

Just then, as if sent from the heavens, two steeds appear to help in my mission.  (I know I'm being overly dramatic but I swear this shit went down, llamas and all.) 

me:  "Llamas, I need your help."

llamas:  "Fuck off city girl."

me:  "No, you fuck off llamas!  Fine, I'll save Texas by myself."

As I push past the llamas, I see the ranch manager driving down the road and I go to meet him,  "Is a fire supposed to be there?", I ask as I point to the hilltop.  "Yeah, they've been burning for two weeks", he answered.  Well there is one fire that I won't have to fight today.

With disaster averted, I went about my day.  I saw a rock squirrel, a fox, those two damn llamas, a gazillion birds - ravens, turkey, barn swallows, red-winged blackbirds, and heaps of turkey vultures to name a few.  Oh yeah - and THIS GUY…

He was hanging out in the middle the road.  I looked at him, he looked at me.  I thought, "Man, I really don't have the time to raise a baby bird right now,"  and then I thought "uhhh, yeah I pretty much have the exact right amount of time to raise a baby bird right now."  Let's do this.  I scooped him up and he immediately bailed.  After landing in a shrub he looked back at me and his baby bird eyes said, "Syke, I was just taking a break from learning how to fly.  See ya."  

I saw a lot of critters today but I couldn't help wonder where are the buffalo?  To wrap up the day, Margie (the other resident and my new awesome friend) and I went for a hike by the lake.  And BAM - bison alert straight ahead.  One of the big daddies was down the road.  We thought it best to avoid his path so we walked down into the dry river basin.  

We're chattin' it up talking about sycamore trees when we heard a rumble of sorts - big daddy buffalo #2 was also out for an evening stroll.  I always pictured buffalo grazing in wide-open fields very far away, never crashing through brush a few yards in front of my face.  I knew this situation called for one thing and one thing only…so I pushed up my sleeves, handed Margie my badass camera, and wrestled that buffalo to the dang ground.  Just kidding, we just turned around.

I know this pic blows but treat it like a 

Where's Waldo but replace Waldo with buffalo.

Between reporting natural disasters and defying death, I worked on stuff like this…