Search the Community

I had to check my last blog entry to see when it was posted. It was September 6, not quite three months ago. Since then we have been on the go... We spent a month with our daughter and her family in California. Our granddaughters are growing up fast but a few golden moments still to go. We took them to a working farm. A 1940's version of a poor working farm. We slept in the rehabbed chicken coup. The girls fed the cows, gathered the eggs, bottle fed some really large calves, made friends with an aging bull that was as big as a house, well, maybe a chicken coup. The girls loved the tire swing and the adopted kittens. Thankfully they didn't ask to take them home. During our stay in California I spent several days communicating with everyone in government I could to convince them to get on top of the situation in Puerto Rico following hurricane Maria. My comments were the same that I heard from numerous others, this was an extreme circumstance. The nature of the island and the near total destruction was going to make recovery here much more difficult than any other area. Today as I write this, most of the island remains without electrical power and hundreds of thousands of island residents have left the island and come to the mainland US, mostly to Florida. There are many in and near Houston and throughout Florida who are dealing with the aftermath of Harvey and Irma yet today. They are so much better off than those in Puerto Rico. Roads and bridges remain out of service. Food and water are difficult to get in many locations. Huge numbers of people are living in what remains of their homes with no hope of secure shelter in the near future. Give what you can to agencies involved in hurricane relief. Our return trip from California has lately involved a trip north to Elkton, Oregon to the Oh-Ho (the Oregon House) for a week with the above family. This year they were off to Mexico and we got relieved of grandparent duty a week early so we made plans to attend an event we haven't been able to see in 16 years on the road. We were able to get last minute reservations with the Monaco International Chapter of FMCA to attend the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. I can spell it without looking it up or playing word check lotto - now. We invited our friends, former FMCA members, now without the big wheels, to join us at the Fiesta. Five days dry camping with four adults on board - and we loved it! The event is spectacular. We were parked four rows back from the launch field. Our gathering point for meals and socializing was right on the front line. I attended most launches and recoveries. I was hooked. If you attend, and if you love balloons for the flying or the beauty or the excitement of the launch and recovery, you will love it also. There were 550 balloons this year and most launched in the morning and returned by noon. The evening glow is fun, no flying but great chance to visit with pilots and crews. We left Albuquerque buoyed by the events of the five days at the Fiesta. We paced ourselves across west Texas and headed for Corpus Christi. Since 2012 I have been active in a group called Texas Master Naturalist. Formed from a splinter group from the Master Gardner group in San Antonio in 1998, the Texas Master Naturalist program has expanded to more than 40 chapters state-wide. Each year there is a statewide meeting of participants. In years past the meeting has been at remote resorts near interesting nature sites. As the size of the organization increased, the character of these meeting has changed. This year almost 600 Texas Master Naturalists gathered at the Corpus Christi Omni Hotel. I have attended several of these events and enjoy the chance to meet and talk with Texas Master Naturalists from other areas and learn about what they are doing. We spent the weekend of October 20 - 22 in Corpus Christi before making the trip to our winter retreat in Edinburg, Texas. So now we're home. Unpacking, cleaning up our mobile home residence, settling in to our winter routine. We have excellent lawn care during the summer but now that's my job. Lots of little things like having the air conditioner serviced, loading the refrigerator, turning on the DirecTV receivers, getting caught up with six months mail that has been stored. We have the letter stuff delivered but the rest sits in a container waiting for our return. I have created our bicycle ride schedule for the park, Louise has conducted her first book club meeting. Louise spend a weekend in Austin for her retirement occupation, the Texas Silver Haired Legislature, a senior citizen group organized to promote and look out for the interests of senior citizens. She is very good at this. So the holidays are upon us. We will bicycle South Padre Island Tuesday this week. We play golf on Monday, I bowl in a league (as a substitute for a friend) on Wednesday, Thursday is a day of leisure for me, my chance to mow the lawn. Louise plays cards with groups of ladies whenever she has a chance. Friday our park bowling league begins it's season with an organizational meeting. The weekend? This weekend we are painting the deck and porch. With luck, we'll have that finished tomorrow. I spent last Sunday helping band birds, a citizen science activity. We capture birds in mist nets, the birds are measured and weighed and tagged with a leg band and released. If or when they are recaptured, we learn about their travels, habits, age, and many other possible bits of information. It is basic avian research. The kind of thing that professional scientists are too busy to do. The professionals are delighted to have the data. They, their graduate students, and others use the data to increase our understanding of the life of birds. This is one of my volunteer activities for the Texas Master Naturalist program. I will attend a chapter meeting Monday night and will receive my re-certification pin for 2017. Re-certification requires eight hours of advanced training and 40 hours of volunteer work each year. Retired? Yes. How else would I be able to do all this?

Happy New Year! Another year, 2016, is coming to an end. We are happily ensconced in our winter home here in Texas. I’d say deep in the heart of Texas but it is more like the tippy-toes of Texas, way down south almost on the US-Mexico border. We had a light shower this morning so my outside work is delayed until the ground and grass dry. I’m enlarging the patio in our back yard and adding a walkway alongside the house to replace the path I’ve worn in the dirt. The lawn needs mowing and I need to check the roof after a particularly windy night earlier this week. None of this was necessary when we were full time!!! I just picked up my iPad to check the weather. What an amazing device the iPad is. It’s a second computer that I can grab and get information from almost instantly. Handier for checking information than opening a document on my computer. Pop it open and get an address or phone number, open a map and zoom to any area you want in just a minute. The world at my fingertips. I like to reference it while driving the motor home but of course I can’t so I turn that duty over to Louise. She is less a fan. I need to talk her through step by step to get the information that I want. Occasionally, she will agree that it is helpful to be able to zoom in on a map and see road detail that isn’t in the trucker’s atlas. We use it to search for cheap diesel, find rest stops, overnight parking, and campgrounds. It saves us money and makes life on the road much easier. Several years ago, I took the training to get my certification as a Texas Master Naturalist. It is similar to the Master Gardner program. The focus is on all of nature, not just plants and gardening. In fact, the Master Naturalist Program began here in Texas when some Master Gardeners became adventuresome and were introducing many fringe areas to the Master Gardner meetings. They were bringing in bugs, birds, butterflies, soil science, water conservation, native plants, invasive species and a host of other topics that were related to gardening but not quite part of the Master Gardner area of focus. So, they started something new. It has grown from a single chapter in San Antonio to over 40 chapters state-wide and is now found in many other states. I mention this because when we return to Texas I pick up the mantle of a Master Naturalist and dig into volunteer work at some of the local nature and wildlife parks here in the Rio Grande Valley. January is the beginning of our annual class for certification and we have 24 people lined up for the training in our local chapter. I will have the stage at the orientation session as I describe the program, it’s history, purpose and the training program which starts them on the path to certification. I will mentor three of the new trainees, giving them encouragement and advice to help them reach their goal. I also do the website for the chapter. My favorite volunteer activity is to assist a local high school teacher, a trained wildlife biologist, with his bird banding. It has expanded my experience with birds and pushed me to learn new skills. There is nothing like having a bird in the hand. What amazing creatures they are. Of course, there is the occasional Cardinal that will get it’s beak on a bit of a finger and it won’t let loose until it draws blood. Putting bands on birds is real research, helping us learn more about the birds, their migration patterns, their longevity, their patterns of movement and much more. On our return to the RGV in late October, we stopped north of Houston so I could attend the Master Naturalist annual meeting in Montgomery. I enjoy these meetings. We stayed at the KOA in Montgomery, a nice very large park with strange KOA rules. Louise is happy to have some time to read and relax outside in the sunshine while I’m spending the day in meetings. There is always something new to learn and this meeting was no exception. Meeting other TMN’s and learning about their activities is inspiring. There were over 300 TMN’s from all over Texas in attendance. One of my friends received an award for 4000 hours of volunteer time and the corresponding Presidential Volunteer Certificate of Recognition. This is the program started by President George H. W. Bush, his “Thousand Points of Light.” Her husband received an award for 5000 volunteer hours. That is some real dedication to the community and its nature parks and centers. Our motor home has spent the last two months in the shop. There were several things that needed work on the motor home and some body damage from an ill-advised backing maneuver so we decided to get all the work done at one time. We didn’t anticipate it taking two months but ordering parts takes time and then I think of one more thing and that takes another part so here we go again. I’ve already moved it from the RV shop to Freightliner for some chassis work, brakes, belts and more. That was done while waiting for one of the last parts to be ordered. Then I found that the step cover that slides out to keep the grandchildren from falling into the stairwell wasn’t working. That means another part… When the RV shop releases it, I’ll take it to the flooring shop to get new carpet. We debated going to tile or other flooring product but finally decided the simplest thing was to simply replace the carpet. Once it returns home we will do a complete restocking. We cleaned it out completely before turning it over to the RV shop. That is something that hasn’t happened since we moved into it in November of 2003. I’m guessing more than a few things that we removed won’t go back. It needed a good housecleaning. Here’s hoping that 2017 finds all well with you and that the coming year will bring you good fortune and happy travels.