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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween or

since we are so close to Mexico!!
I thought there would be more of the old traditions here, I thought wrong.
I found only the museums try to carry on the old traditions of the altars,etc. we went over to Port Isabela to check out theirs. They tried hard with a play, poetry, decorating sugar skulls and a class to make your own altars using a cigar box but there really weren't many people to enjoy or partake in it.
Here's a collage of some of the wildlife we found this week.
We played pegs and jokers Wed. with one couple, the rest of our group isn't here yet.
It's been a nice week, there was a front Tues. which the wind came out of the north and the most of the scissortail flycatchers left with it. I now hear the sandhill cranes in the fields across the road from us.
We have our bird feeders up now, only a couple of sparrows have found them so far.
Ken went to the bird banding this morning, they caught 21 birds. I didn't feel like going, I have enough chigger bites. Guess I'll just have to learn to put up with them since they like me so well, they don't seem to bite Ken.
Here's this weeks Mexican saying, I don't understand this one.
"En casa de herrero, cuchillo de palo"
translation: In a good blacksmith's house, you wouldn't expect knives made out of wood.
(In other words You sometimes see things that aren't right)

Hope you all had a fun Halloween.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Settling in


We are getting settled in, we put out our chairs, decorator flag, sewer hose, washed down the RV and rearranged stuff around to be comfortable. I took a break this morning from cleaning etc and the great tailed grackles were all lined up outside our RV. Hmmm maybe they were going to welcome us in their way after Ken just finished washing the RV.
We were up early Sat. morning to watch bird banding just down the road from us. Angela is an intern from Laguna Atascosa NLR, Scott is the wildlife agent at the refuge we were at and Mark is the licensed bird bander. He is holding a Wood Thrush here.


This is a Hooded Warbler he banded, they captured 10 birds in their nets Sat. morning, others banded were an orange crown warbler, 2 commom yellow throats, long-billed thrasher and 4 lincoln sparrows.

Ken is waiting for the wind to die down before he puts up our bird feeders, that wait could be a long wait.



Saturday, October 23, 2010

First Day Back

We had a day of sand castles, sun and wind.
The day started out early with the welcome call of the resident owls, then breakfast at Ken's favorite place McDonald's in Harlingen. Then off to the visitor center to pick up the local Winter Texan and SPI papers to see what was happening. It turns out this weekend is the SPI's 23 Annual Sand Castle Days. So after getting the car a hand wash at one of the car washes, off to South Padre Island. Click on the above photo to enlarge and see the great work of a few of the 23 master castle makers. They come from around the world, one from Holland, two from Canada and rest from US including St. Louis.
There were amateur builders too, individuals and family categories.

There was also a trash from the beach sculpture contest, here is one of the 8.
There was a nice crowd there, and we could vote on our favorite and of course cash prizes will be awarded.
We ran into a couple we knew from last years hawk watch, they are now volunteers at Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge but most of it is closed because it is still flooded, Bentsen Palms State Park is the same only the visitor center open. In July, this area was hit by flooding from the hurricane Alex and then tropical storm Hermine so the Rio Grande River is still over it's banks.
We visited the birding boardwalk at SPI, it is now all open free to the public after a big local uprise when the new birding center closed it and were making everyone go through their doors with a modest fee.
The egrets are there, a curlew, yellow legs, sandpipers, one moorhen, one blue wing teal, dowagers, brown pelicans, ospreys, gulls, skimmers and terns. We have to do a little reviewing on shorebirds. On the way over we saw lots of scissortail flycatchers, great tail grackles, doves, kestrel, kingfisher and mockingbirds. The scissortails won't be staying around here as they are on their way further south.
A Mexican saying is always in the LaFeria News and if I remember to pick one up I will share it will you, here is this weeks.
"Entre menos burros, mas elotes."
Translation: The fewer the donkeys, the more the corn.




Friday, October 22, 2010

Back in Texas

We made it back down to Hummingbird Cove this afternoon we are in the same space.
We were greeted with 35mph winds and 90 degree temps.We saw several scissortail flycatchers, 2 ospreys, a cara cara, cattle egrets on the way down and were greeted here by the resident goose, a fly over of whistling ducks, and a sandpiper on the dock.
There aren't many winter Texans here yet, but it's early, we came down early hoping to see some butterflies and maybe the wood stork.
The park has a get together planned for Sunday be fun to see who's here.



Wednesday, October 20, 2010

On the road

We are back on the road heading south now. We have had a busy week, a friend was in the hospital so we visited him several times he went home today. We visited with Ken's family, had lunch with his brother and his wife Tuesday a nice little visit. It always feels new to me when we take a long break from the road but it doesn't last long, even the cats are back to their traveling habits, they were all very good today. We are staying the night at one of our favorites stops in Guthrie, OK the Cedar Valley RV Park, it has a par 3 golf course but we got in a little late to take advantage of it. It probably would have felt pretty nice to take a walk tho, it was 80 degrees here today, very nice.
The park is for sale, the owner is 90 plus and ready to give it up for 750,000 there are 36 acres.
Ken is enjoying his new IPhone, I no longer have a phone so just call Ken's old number. I never used my phone much anyway, may get a cheap one later.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Art and family

Another beautiful weekend, we're getting spoiled now.
We went downtown Friday evening for the Art Crawl, the last one of the season. The crowd was actually there was no crowd, it was homecoming so the sidewalk art was seen by the parade crowd earlier in the day.
Craig Thomas, did this beautiful chalk painting in a downtown parking lot. He is a MO artist and travels around the world making his sidewalk art.

I bought this puffin motif fabric and really didn't know what to do with it as it's pattern is quite large. So I decided to make a sweatshirt jacket, it took more time thinking it out than it did to make up. I thought I should keep it simple and I used buttons from my stash they don't need to match. The hood is buttoned on too.
We got an e-mail yesterday, that Ken's son Tyson and his wife had their baby Sat. another boy. We are waiting for photos and a name.
Sat. we were visiting Ken's family, step mom, brothers, wives and sister, they got together to see the photos of a nephew's wedding. It was a nice visit.



Sunday, October 3, 2010

A fall weekend

What a beautiful weekend, cool evenings and perfect daytime temps in the low 70's.
We got out and enjoyed a couple of activities this weekend.
Sat. we went to Westin's Applefest, there was a huge crowd for such a little town , there was only two blocks of crafts, one row of food and two stages. Then stopped at Vaughns' Apple Orchard on the way home, they don't have much of an orchard anymore but they still get a crowd for their cider and apple doughnuts.
Today, we went to Blue Springs, the Wall of Healing was on display in a park there this weekend. It is the half size version of the Washington DC's Vietnam memorial .
Ken wanted to look for his cousins name.


Then we took a little walk in a park in Liberty looking for birds etc.

Soon this guy will be hibernating.