Judy’s plant project

 All the pieces assembled and ready to go. Two and a half hours later. Little fairies admiring the bubbling water feature.  Other little critters lurking. Each of the larger rocks came from somewhere along our summer trip.  This rock is from Lake Wohlford. Leftover plants are stashed in a tray below until they’re needed on another project.  

Solution to the puzzle

 Little water buckets next to trees for no apparent reason.  There are five little buckets spaced around the park. We can always come up with some kind of explanation for something we haven’t seen before.  Our self-imposed rule is that our explanation doesn’t have to be right, it just has to make sense in some way.  This time though; nothing.  Couldn’t figure it out.  We gave up and asked Bob. Turns out, it’s all about the rabbits.  And the dripper system.  Jackrabbits and cottontails.  They’re everywhere.  It’s true, we, and Henry, watched those rabbits every day.  The park was having trouble with rabbits chewing holes in the drippers that water the trees.  Rabbits have to have water, even desert rabbits.  Maybe especially desert rabbits. The park solution was to set out water buckets for the rabbits, and keep the water buckets fresh and full.  It’s working.  They haven’t had any water lines chewed since. 

Unsolved Mysteries

 At Rusty’s RV Ranch.See in the photo above?  That little red bucket?  It’s just there.  What do you suppose it’s for? Here it is a little closer.  We saw a Park utility cart stop at it briefly.  It looks like it has water in it. It’s probably not a low-tech watering solution.  We’ve seen those before in the back country.  Native plants are planted, then they put a large bucket of water with a small hole in it next to each one, and the new plant gets a nice slow prolonged watering to help it get established. That’s not what this is, though.  It’s right next to a tree that has a higher tech watering solution.  There are drippers run to each tree that give it a good soaking once every week or so. Yes, the little bucket has water in it.  Park maintenance cruises by and makes sure there is always water in it. It’s a puzzle.