Texas' season within a season

We've settled into milder temps lately, which is pretty common for Texas. We'll usually have a few serious cold snaps, but always return to the moderate temps. Calling this time of year winter is really kinda lost on us. But I digress. In the last few days we've had several mornings begin with clouds and/or fog, but then it eventually lifts for afternoon sun. In the video below, you can see the obvious line where the clouds were being blown out to make way for clear skies.

With these comfortable temps, I've found myself sitting on the back porch to read or work on my laptop most afternoons. And thus I've enjoyed the parade of boats on the water. In chilly weather, it's just the hardy fishing folks out doing their thing. But yesterday, I spied the trifecta of a pontoon, wake boat and fishing boat when the Fahrenheit climbed well into the 70s. Unfortunately no sailboats have been spotted this week, because they're my favorite.

With the nice weather, I've been able to take our dogs on longer walks through the neighborhood. When we were passing by a little canal-inlet sort of area recently, I looked out and saw ducks on the water. No surprise there. But upon closer inspection, I realized that what at first glance appeared to be a duck off by itself was actually a nutria paddling towards open water. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with nutria, they're an invasive species. Initially imported from South America in the late 1800s for the fur trade, they're now found across large swaths of the US. Nutria are considered pests/nuisances here in Texas since they undermine the banks of ponds and lakes with their destructive burrowing. When the husband was growing up, his pawpaw would turn him and his friends loose to help weed out the nutria population on their farm so they wouldn't destroy the ponds for their cattle.

As you can see above and below, nutria look like the ugly cousin of a muskrat or beaver. They're often called swamp rats or river rats. The term rat is appropriate because they have these long, skinny rat-like tails. And get a load of those bright orange front teeth. That's the stuff of nightmares, y'all. I read that these teeth grow continuously throughout the nutria's life. It certainly provides a horrific visual for that idiom "long in the tooth". Poor guy could use a good whitening toothpaste and some of those bleach strips to get his chompers presentable. But I guess the lady nutrias don't mind.