The Texas Firebush

 

 

It grows this big.

 

I give it a good whack back each year so it can have a fresh start each spring.  I thought I’d give it a break this year and only cut it back to waist high.

 

It didn’t appreciate the consideration.  It only wants to grow back right from the ground.

 

I had to get out the loppers and remove more dead stuff.  Now it won’t take long for the rest of the old stalks to disappear inside the new growth.

 

The Esperanza is looking happy with these warm days and cool nights.

 

Even Mighty Mouse is going for it.

 

But he still needs a tomato tower around him to make sure no lawn mowers accidentally mistake him for a weed.

 

A disagreeable point of view

 

 

A law school student in Florida wrote a paper espousing an unpopular belief; that our original constitution, when it said “We the people…”, only meant white people.  From there, the paper went on to describe how everything should be now, based on that interpretation.  Apparently, the paper won an award, not because it was right, but because it was well written.  There is outrage that a paper with that premise could win an award, even if it got a good grade.  An interesting debate: Should a person be recognized for writing something disagreeable if they do a good job writing it?  So many threads to pull on there.

 

 

Darn that Mazda

 

 

 

All these years, and it still won’t break so we can replace it.  Well, after 13 years we finally gave up and traded it in for a newer used car.

 

We found what we wanted on Carvana, and they offered us a fair trade on the Mazda, so we took it.

 

A 2023 Model 3.

 

It looks good in our driveway.

 

Clay-colored thrush

 

 

 

Same size and shape as an American robin.

 

Only different in the color.  And the range.  American Robins are ubiquitous in the U.S. and Canada, only occasionally visiting here in the Valley in the winter.  Here though, and in Mexico and Central America, the Clay-colored Thrush is a year-round resident.

 

Long-billed Thrasher

 

 

 

 

 

He’s a mimic, like a mockingbird.  We get serenaded with elaborate treetop songs.

 

White Ibis

 

 

With a couple brown immatures.

 

 

And a whole mess of other birds.

 

Snowy egrets, white ibis, white-faced ibis, some northern shovelers and mottled ducks in the background.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s that time again

 

 

For the biannual annoyance.  Daylight Saving Time.

 

Time doesn’t change, we do.  We can’t spring time forward, we can only move our clocks to something that doesn’t represent what time it really is.  If the justification is to get people to work earlier, or kids to school earlier, just tell them to be there at seven instead of eight.

 

For the argument that it is necessary to continue the clock switch because interstate commerce requires it, Arizona and the adjacent states didn’t collapse when Arizona opted out of Daylight Saving Time in 1968.

 

 

 

Food Fades

 

 

My afternoon food fades.  Had them all my life.  I remember in high school hoping any complicated classes would be in the morning because I knew I’d be dozing through class in the afternoons.  Later, as an adult, I figured out the connection to food, to what I had for lunch.  I assumed it was a blood sugar issue and tried to figure it out from that perspective.  Maybe too much.  Maybe too little.  I could never get the pattern.  Maybe gluten.  Maybe MSG.  Preservatives?  No suspect held up to repetition.  Then by chance during a fade, I checked my blood pressure.  Well actually, Judy thought to check it and told me to do it.  My blood pressure was very low.  Both numbers were below a hundred.

 

I checked with Hal.  We sorted through hypoglycemia and hypotension and settled on the latter.  It’s not a big deal.  Nothing to medicate.  It’s just a thing, but now it has a name.  Post Prandial Hypotension.  A sudden drop in blood pressure after a meal.  Food fades.  The solution?  I continue to do what I’ve been doing all my adult life; watch for patterns and avoid the foods that make me crash.  It’s a whole lot easier to pick out the patterns now though, since I’m no longer trying to correlate with blood sugar.  Black coffee in the morning is fine.  I’ve figured out a safe breakfast.  A couple snacks for lunch, and dinner doesn’t seem to matter so much.  It’s working.

 

Mom had it too.  Two o’clock in the afternoon she’d have to lie down on the front room couch and take a nap for an hour.  She always wanted to be back up again by the time I got home from school, but sometimes she was still asleep.  She never made the connection to what she had for lunch or blood pressure.  I got there but it took me a long time.  And I had more resources available to help me figure it out.

 

Mighty Mouse

 

 

 

The smallest plant in the yard.  The first to bloom.

 

Northern Cardinal

 

 

 

 

And Mrs. Cardinal

 

 

 

 

 

Can you spot the sand crab in this picture?

 

 

 

He looks like another clump of sand, but there is a giveaway.

 

That menacing claw.  It looks big on him, but the entire crab is maybe 2 inches wide, so it’s not too scary.

 

Sign of the day

 

 

Noticed while walking through a South Texas industrial area, packed with small businesses building and repairing things.

 

The sign read:

 

Dirty hands.

Clean money.

 

 

It doesn’t exactly describe the life of an accountant, but we recognize and admire the sentiment.

 

 

 

I haven’t mentioned gators lately

 

 

But there are plenty of them at the Birding and Nature Center on South Padre Island.  They’re a rescue center for alligators that cause trouble with people.  The problem lies mostly with the people, not the gators.  If a gator gets fed, it learns from that experience and becomes a “nuisance” and has to be removed.  Or maybe it shows up on a dock or in a swimming pool.

 

There are small ones in tanks.

 

 

To larger ones in ponds.

 

All the way up to Big Padre.

 

Twelve feet of gator!

 

A vegetable cooler

 

 

Freshened up our camping meals on the road.

 

We pack a little Coleman stove and a nonstick pan.  Judy has upped our camping dinner game.

 

 

I just can’t get enough of these tangled oak branches.

 

 

Made a day trip to Lost Maples State Natural Area.

 

To everyone’s delight on a warm day.

 

 

 

Now we’re home.

 

Have I mentioned the Altamira Oriole lately?

 

 

 

 

Perfecting the process

 

 

The upgraded office.  A fold-up portable table, just the right size.  A second screen for the laptop that doesn’t add to the footprint on the tabletop.

 

Just enough room for a mouse on the right.  I’ll put the 10-key pad on the right side as well, but didn’t bring it this trip.

 

The second monitor attaches magnetically to the back of the laptop.  It rotates and folds around the back when the laptop is closed.  They stay together and fit inside the laptop sleeve of my knapsack.  (I had a two extra screen setup, but it was cumbersome and complicated to get all the cords plugged in right.  It required its own power.  This one is simple.  One C to C cord plugged into an outlet on the computer.  Done.)

 

 

Very handy.

 

For internet, Starlink is working great.  Sometime there is too much tree cover for it to work right at the van, so we stretch out a long cord to reach a clear view of the sky.

 

 

What a concept

 

 

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

 

People were struggling, so the government stepped up.  They didn’t hand out money, they ran a program of pay for hard work, which at the same time provided training.  The participants got the dignity and reward of work, and we’re enjoying the benefits today, almost a century later.

 

 

We run into CCC projects all across the state of Texas.  We’re always glad when we do, because the work is always charming.

 

The morning view

 

 

 

 

Gain a little elevation,

 

and the oak forest yields to juniper and mountain laurel.