Is this what you were trying to achieve?
library(tidyverse)
library(magick)
images = 1:250 %>%
map(~image_annotate(falls_gif, paste0("Acre-Feet: ", 2*.x),
size=20, color="white"))
images[[5]]
Combining each annotated gif into a single gif (where I've reduced the number of frames in the original gif to reduce the file size):
images = 1:4 %>%
map(~image_annotate(falls_gif[seq(1,26,4)], paste0("Acre-Feet: ", 2*.x),
size=20, color="white"))
x = image_join(images)
x