Sunday, Oct. 18

This morning my beautiful wife and I took the boys for a run and to look for ducks. On the drive in toward the pond, we saw a harrier hawk, or a marsh hawk. You can tell its a harrier hawk, and not another type of hawk, by the white patch on its ass.

As we drove through the gate there were a bunch of black angus cows on the road. Cows have cow meetings on roads. I guess they have discussions about where they're going to poop and stuff.

Chapman, the Wonder Dog, decided it would be great fun to chase them. He was having a large time until one of the cows decided to chase him back. He decided discretion was the better part of valor, and took off, away from the cows. Meanwhile, Chester, the Senior Wonder Dog (and I emphasize the senior part) is scared to death of cows. He got kicked one time when he was a youngster about Chapman's age. So he made a wide circle to avoid the cows.

We drove by the pond and saw some coots. The pond looked like a great place for ducks. If I were a duck, I'd be hanging out at this pond.

We kept driving and came across some more cows. These cows were more aggressive, so I put Chapman back in the truck. My beautiful wife became very concerned, because we had not seen Chester for a good while. So we went looking for him. We went back around the pond and herded the cows down the road. They did not want to give up their road, and just kept running ahead of the truck. Finally, we came to a turn in the road, and some of the cows decided it looked like a good place to exit the cow freeway, and they began to turn. We drove through the cows and got ahead of them.

Earlier, I had seen a glimpse of Chester, but by the time we got turned around, he was no where to be seen. So we parked and waited for Chester to find us. While we were waiting, we saw a group of 8 speckled bellies very high. The sky was cobalt blue. No clouds. South Texas fall.

Since Chester is scared shitless of cows, he made a wide circle around them, and it took him about 15 minutes to find us. My beautiful wife was frantic that we had lost him or that he was dead of a heart attack. But being the wise dog that he is, he had taken a circuitous route to avoid the cows. He may be old, but he's not stupid.

After the happy reunion with Chester, we decided we should head on back to the house. On the way out, we saw some kind of kite. At first, I thought it might be a falcon. But when it flew off the fence post, I could tell it was a kite by the shape of its wings. I couldn't see it well enough to say what kind it was.

All in all, it was a nice outing.