Goose Island

Admiring the view. Smooth gray water, the Rockport/Fulton Peninsula a couple miles away across the bay. Aransas Bay. It is perfectly calm. Sixty degrees. Six posts in the water fifty feet out, occupied by five pelicans and one cormorant. One cormorant, pretending he’s a pelican. But then one of the pelicans is poised, wings out, drying them, pretending he’s a cormorant. Low clouds. The Copano Bay Bridge off in the mist to the right. Three Savannah Sparrows working the grass for seeds, between us and the water. One laughing gull, wearing his transitional plumage between winter and summer, black head almost complete, on a post next to the water in front of us. The tide is in. A Willet wanders by in the oyster-bed shallows. Three Goldeneyes drift into view, one fishing, two snoozing. Somehow they stay together. A flock of peeps zooms past from right to left. Complaining. The pelicans shuffle. A few more fly in and land. A few fly off. Now there are three Pelicans, one Cormorant and two Royal Terns. I can barely hear the water lapping against the seawall. I can smell the sea grass. The rain starts again. Lightly.

This is the big storm day. They’ve been watching this one come for a week now. I set the alarm for seven. I still had a chance to take a birding walk, if the weather was good, and see the sparrow and wren. Can’t pass that up. I was saved by the rain. Just as I stood up, the wind and rain hit. Finally. I went back to bed. Later, I got up to admire the view. The storm only lasted two hours. It moved on.

Went back inside. I checked the propane. It’s half full. Judy did some chores. Vacuumed the armadillo. Watched the Australian Open. Judy found a house for sale in the paper for $35,000. It’s only one bedroom and one bath, but a house for $35,000? That’s pretty reasonable.

Checked the propane. It’s still half full.

Decided to try to something new with the motorhome. Instead of driving it out to dump it every few days when we stay at state parks, you carry some gray water away from it periodically. We bought a portable gray water tank with wheels. You leave the motorhome where it is, drop some gray water into the portable tank, drag the portable tank over to the dump station with the car, and dump it. It worked. It was a little heavy, lifting the tank with twenty gallons of water in it. Let's see, twenty gallons, eight pounds per gallon. Yeah. It's heavy. You only have to lift one end, so it's not so bad. It tilts to dump. I think after we do it a few more times, we’ll get the rhythm of it.

Talked with our neighbor on the left. He paddles his kayak all over, fishing the bays. It’s a pretty good setup. He has a couple rod holders on it, a clip to hold his paddle while he’s managing a fish, an combination tackle box, ice chest on the back to hold the gear and the catch, and electronics on board to tell him water temperature, depth, and when he’s over fish. He doesn’t need the depth finder or fish finder here. You can just look down into the water and see how deep you are and whether there are fish or not.