In Honor of Texas Independence Day...

...I'm posting about our trip last weekend to San Jacinto, where Texas won its independence.

This is a photo I took of the San Jacinto monument. The battle of San Jacinto is where Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836. About 10 years later, it would become the 28th state in the Union. This would lead to the Mexican War (1846-1848) which resulted in the acquisition of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Colorado.

 

On April 20th, General Sam Houston chose this area, where the Buffalo Bayou meets the San Jacinto River, to fight Santa Anna. Hours later, Santa Anna and his troops arrived. The next morning, another Mexican general arrived with 500 troops. Houston ordered a bridge destroyed to prevent more Mexican reinforcements, but this also isolated Houston's troops from additional troops, too. (Photo: Alex at the San Jacinto monument.)

 

Houston decided to attack that afternoon. The Texans charged across the prairie separating them from the Mexicans, but they were not seen as they were screened by trees and the rise of the ground between the two enemies. (Photo: Alex & I on nature walk near monument.)

The Mexican army wasn't expecting to fight until the following day. They had not posted sentries and were caught off guard. The Texans swarmed into the Mexican camp with cries of "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad." (Photo from top of monument showing the river.)

The Mexicans never implemented their battle plan and the battle ended in only 18 minutes. About 600 Mexican troops were killed while only nine Texans died in the battle. (Photo from top of monument. You can see the Houston skyline a little left of center.)

"General Santa Anna was captured the next day and forced to sign a treaty that recognized Texas independence and opened the gateways for America's continuing westward expansion." (Quote from San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site brochure printed by Texas Parks and Wildlife. I also used information from this brochure to write this post.)  (Photo of top of monument.)

This is a photo from one side of the monument. It begins, Texas declared her independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos March 2. For nearly two months her armies met disaster and defeat."

Measured by its results, San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world. The freedom of Texas won here led to annexation and to the Mexican War, resulting in the aquisition by the United States of the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma almost one-third of the present area of the American nation, nearly a million square miles of territory, changed soverignty.

Loggerhead Shrike - Vicious Predator???

Thanks for the help I received in identifying my mystery bird. It is a Loggerhead Shrike.

This sweet looking songbird is actually a vicious predator! According to Cornell's "All About Birds" site, it uses it "uses its hooked beak to kill insects, lizards, mice, and birds, and then impales them on thorns to hold them while it rips them apart." BirdWeb adds the following: "because their feet are not large or strong enough to hold prey, shrikes find a crotch in a tree, a thorn, or barbed wire to hang their prey on while they eat. Prey may be left on such a site for later consumption." Hmmm... very interesting bird!

Health, Snow, and Bird Identity

lex and I are still both recovering from our health problems of the last few weeks. Alex started a second round of antibiotics tonight for her sinus infection. My back/neck/arm are still getting back to normal after a week and a half of pain. The doctor thinks it was a pulled muscle, though I'm still not sure how I pulled it. Especially as it has hurt so bad for so long.  

Our weather has been crazy. It was 70 degrees on Sunday and today (Tuesday), we are seeing another rare Houston SNOW!!! We've just had some snowflakes mixed with rain here, but other places are getting actual snow!

 

Alex and I went on a nature walk with the Family Nature Explore Club on Saturday. It was also a history field trip and I'll try to post about it in the next few days. I took over 100 photos! But, for now, I'm wondering if anyone can help me identify this cute bird!!! My bird books don't have a good match for him, and I'm hoping someone can help me. So, if you have an idea, please let me know! Thanks!

Raccoon Scat Recipe

I got the recipe for the fake raccoon scat we enjoyed at a recent nature event when we played "Who Dung It?" (see post). I know some of you might have a need to make a batch of raccoon scat. :-)

Also, I found a note here that you can use Rasinettes as deer scat. Yum!

Also from this post, "Raccoons are omnivorous, which means they feed on a wide variety of plant and animal foods. What they eat depends on the time of year and what is available, so their scat, which is another word for poop, can vary quite a bit. Their diet can include acorns, corn, wheat and other grains, wild grapes, black cherry, pawpaw, giant ragweed, blackberry, pokeweed, apples, crickets, grasshoppers, earthworms, crayfish, carrion, young turtles, frogs, turtle and bird eggs and, of course, garbage."



Raccoon Scat: A Tasty Outdoor Snack!

3 Tbs butter
1 12 oz bag marshmallows
1 12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate morsels
10 oz of raisins or craisins (berries)
2 cups crispy rice cereal (insects and crayfish parts)

1. Melt butter over low heat in a large saucepan

2. Add marshmallows and allow to melt, stirring often. Once marshmallows are mostly melted, add chocolate morsels and stir until everything is melted.

3. Add raisins, craisins and cereal to mixture, stir (Amounts are approximate and may need to be adjusted until you get the right consistency.)

4. Use a spoon to scoop out cookies onto waxed paper or cookie sheet

5. Form to look like raccoon scat

6. Allow to cool

Makes approximately 30 yummy cookies!

Family Nature Explore Club at Sims Bayou

We went to the Family Nature Explore Club's first monthly meeting this month. We had a great time!

Here's the cover of the scrapbook Alex made while we were there.

a growing pumpking

the guide said this was the last Golden Orb Weaver they've been seeing...I was surprised to see 3 baby spiders in this photo when I looked at it on the computer!

They had a lady there who was working on tagging hummingbirds. She had a cage on 2 feeders. Unfortunately, a male kept chasing them all away. So, she put up the mist net, but he just sat on top of it!

a gourd growing on a vine

The lady did end up catching 2 sparrows, though. I was surprised at how calm they were!

Alex holding the rooster, Scooter! He was an amazingly friendly rooster.

Me with Scooter.

We had a brief lesson on how to use binoculars and then went on a bird walk. We saw quite a few birds. And, a few of us saw a hawk carrying something BIG... we think it was a squirrel!

Who Dung It? and Fascinating Scat Fact

On Saturday, Alex & I went to the Sims Bayou Nature Center as they kicked off their Family Days. They will be having a Family Nature Day one Saturday a month during the school year and we're excited about it! 

One of the things we did was play a fun game called "Who DUNG it?" They actually had frozen animal & insect scat for the kids to identify!!! Alex got called up to guess this dung. She'd actually seen the lady take a bite of this one (!) and had guessed it was a brownie (because she'd seen brownie scat before), but this looked different. She wasn't sure what it was.

But, it turned out to be chocolate dung! (And, yes it was yummy... it even had some kind of berry in it! I will try to get the recipe.) We even learned some fascinating scat facts like:

• Koala scat actually smells good... because all they eat is eukalyptus!
• Mistle toe makes scat very sticky... so sticky that an animal will have to wipe on a tree... which is what the mistle toe needs to grow on a tree where it wants to be!
• The largest scat in the world is from the blue whale. (Alex got this question right!)
• Some animals, such as rabbits and rodents, have to eat their own (or their parent's) scat. This is because the plants they eat are so hard to digest efficiently, that they must digest it twice!
• Some kind of insect (a fly) actually doesn't ever produce dung! It only lives a day. So, the book "Everybody Poops" is a little deceptive.

I wish I could remember more of the facts, but I did request the book Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable by Davies which the leaders used. It looks fascinating! And, it is a fascinating topic!