18 more hours done!

                                  THE EVAPORATING POND BEHIND THE TEMPORARY VIS

 

The amount of hours that I have to put in each week on the refuge, is a yearly good natured debate that Stephanie, the volunteer coordinator, and I have.  She wants me to put in 32 hours/week, and I think it should be 24 hrs/week.  To me, 32 hours is practically a fulltime job, and I’m retired!  The 32 hours for solos seems to be very common along the Texas coast and at many Arizona refuges.  At just about all of the other refuges I’ve volunteered at, I’ve only been required to put in 17-24 hours.  So, some weeks I put in 32 hours and some weeks I don’t.  There are  various arguments to support either position that I won’t go into here.  :)

Anyway, this weekend I put in two nine hour days working the VIS.  That’s a pretty good chunk out of my weekly quota!  This is not the busiest time of the year for refuge visitors, so I was happy to see this young Cooper’s hawk alight in a nearby dead tree yesterday.  He stopped for an afternoon preening session.

A little while later, this orange-crowned warbler (L), and a common yellowthroat (R) bubbled  through the semi live oak trees across the road.  I was anxious for my stint to be done because I knew that JOHN AND BRENDA would be arriving at the RV pads in the afternoon from Louisiana.  When I was done with work, we met, and I enjoyed a delicious lasagna meal that Brenda had prepared, and a great evening of conversation.  As others have said, meeting people in the RV lifestyle or from the RV blogland community is like meeting old friends. 

 

We were so busy chit chatting, that I didn’t even get any pictures.  I tried this morning before I headed in for work, but Brenda declined being seen on the blog in her PJs (:)), and John, and their dog Meg, somehow disappeared off of the highway as I tried to catch them on my way into the VIS.  Oh well, maybe we’ll meet again some time down the road.

 

For some reason, I didn’t sleep very well last night so today really dragged by.  I was happy to be done.

You know who was also happy I was finished with work after being cooped up in the rig for two days in a row!  After a good walk around the compound, it was play time…

Until a red-tailed hawk had the audacity to fly overhead and land at the top of an electrical pole!  I guess Emma thought it was a turkey vulture.  :)  She seldom barks, but when she does she puts her whole being into it!  Do you think she knows that if you are going to do something, you should do it well?  :)  Such expressive antics she goes through.

Tonight’s moon rise and sunset…

I’m supposed to have the next two days off, but with the Christmas Bird Count on Wednesday, and my normal bird surveys on Thursday, it seems to me I’m going to have to take some time to scope out the new way to get to the survey areas before then.  (was that a run on sentence, or just a very long one?)  Hmmm, looks like a 32 hour work week to me.  :)

                                                                          THE END!!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

I bit the bullet

No, this is not the gulf coast of Texas!  This is site #54 at the Pioneer Family Campground in Lake Village, Indiana.  I have rented this site for January 1 – December 31, 2011.  I’m trying to picture it minus the snow.  :)  Believe me, I won’t be there when any snow is around!

After wandering around the country for almost five years, I’ve decided to spend the summer closer to family.  My daughter, Robyn, and her husband, Dennis, and two of my granddaughters, Avery and Phoebe, live about 30 miles away in Dyer, IN.  Robyn and Dennis made a trip down to the campground today to check it out for me.  (You can only tell so much from a website.)  They both thought my rig would fit in well here, and there are no neighbors on the left.  I had thought of staying for only a month or two, but the monthly rate is $500.  I can have the site for the year for $975, so were I to stay for the whole season, that would average out to less than $10/night.  It’s 45 miles from the Chicago area where my brothers and sister live, so I bit the bullet and made the reservation today. 

I won’t arrive there until May, and still have the option to make trips to other areas during the summer like the UP of Michigan.  This idea is growing on me, and Dennis reminded me that they are installing a heated outdoor pool in their backyard this spring.  So, when I go to their house to do my laundry, I can spend the waiting time taking a dip in the pool.  :)  Not too shabby!   I never thought I’d be spending that much time in Indiana, but I’m pretty excited about it.  Any ideas of things to see and do in northwest Indiana would be greatly appreciated…
Tonight’s sunset was the best so far this year at Anahuac.  Please notice the American kestrel in the upper right corner.  :)  Just had to sneak in a bird…

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy   

Ever have this happen?

Did you ever hear a tune or a jingle and have it get stuck in your head for the whole day?  That happens quite often to me, and this afternoon was a good example.  Emma and I were sitting outside while a couple of volunteers were working on trying to improve our wifi service here.  They were installing a new antenna to try to boost the bars of reception for the volunteer pads.  I was their test case.  I sat outside with a walkie-talkie and they would have me check my bars of service as they progressed.

On the electrical lines entering the compound, were about 150 boat-tailed grackles all lined up in a row.  They would periodically all take off together to fly over the pads and regroup once again on the wires.  As they did this, I had this poem (?) jump into my head:
Birdie, birdie in the sky
Dropped some whitewash in my eye
I didn’t scream; I didn’t cry
I’m just glad that cows don’t fly!

Well, once I thought of that, I couldn’t get it out of my head all day!  Ack!  However, I really am glad that cows don’t fly!  :)
Flocks of geese continued to stream into the refuge overhead today.  The ‘V’ is snow geese, and the line above is white-fronted geese.

My post last night sure garnered some interesting comments.  Many of them made me chuckle.  Thanks guys!  I didn’t know that feral hogs, hay, and beef would create such a diversion.  :)

I continued to try to get things organized for my cruise departure today.  Tomorrow, I’ll be dropping Emma off at the boarding kennel, and then plan to buy a suitcase and some other needed items.
I leave you with what a sunset can look like on the marshes of Anahuac.

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy

Still waiting to move on

When I took Emma out first thing this morning, I noticed that there was no rain, but, oh my gosh, the wind was a howling!  I really wanted to be on my way to get out of Oklahoma into Texas, so I prepped everything inside.  I turned on the TV to the local news station, and most of the news was all about the weather!  Lots of warnings and watches, so I checked my online weather source, and the radar for where I was going to travel was not good.  Once again, I debated with myself, but finally made the decision to stay put for another night.  :(

 

When I went to the office this afternoon to pay up for one more night, the gal at the desk told me that she had a call from a camper that was coming in from Texas.  They had called to say they didn’t know when they’d get here because they were just getting hammered with high winds and severe storms.  Whew!  I guess I made the right decision.  In the afternoon, the winds were so bad that I pulled in the slides because I was worried about the slide topper awnings.  We had some rain, but mostly winds.

Things calmed down a bit in the late afternoon, and I was able to put the slides back out.

After dinner, Emma and I were able to take a good walk about, and I looked for some photo opportunities.

Here’s some more old John Deere equipment.  It was a bit of a struggle to find anything interesting after three days.  :)

 

The forecast calls for sunny skies tomorrow, but increasingly high winds by afternoon.  So, my latest plan is to get out of here early tomorrow morning.  I’m even going to set my alarm!  Egad!  What a sorry state things have resulted in.  :)  I leave you with tonight’s hopeful sunset…

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy