Carolina
wren.
Inspecting
the van.
She
tried all the doors and even disappeared inside briefly.
She
flew out and back a few times. While she was out, we closed up the van
before a nest could be started. We’ve seen this movie before. A few
years ago here, a wren built a nest on a back ledge of an open slide on the
coach in two days.
In
the roadside undergrowth.
Rooting
about.
Face
buried. Unconcerned about me.
Until
finally, we get the shot.
The
Kodak moment!
That
look a lot alike.
The
primary one is the monarch. It’s really distinctive and is poisonous to
birds because of the milkweed it feeds on. All of its white spots are on
the black edges.
A
butterfly that looks a lot like the Monarch is the Queen. It’s tasty but
birds mostly avoid it because it looks like a Monarch. It has white spots
on the black edges, but they’re also on the colorful part too.
The
third is the Viceroy. It isn’t poisonous to birds but it’s very bitter
because it eats willow leaves. The white spots are on the black edges,
but it has that black bar across the lower wing that the others don’t.
The
Viceroy is the one we just saw at Brazos Bend.
They
always look like this.
Squat.
Compact.
Except
when they look like this!
I
guess, even when you’re stealthy, you just have to stretch it out sometimes.
A
recent before and after.
You
have to guess which is which…
I
like the wild wooly look, but she might appreciate the improved vision from the
clean cut.
We
left the door open and he just walked right in.
He
got carried back outside though.
Brazos
Bend State Park. We drove home Friday, but I might still have a few more
Brazos Bend pictures to send out.
The
fish cleaning station.
The
fish cleaned, meat harvested, and carcasses tossed aside.
The
recycling crew.
Doing
their part.
That’s
a long time to get to be married.
Today,
Judy and I have now been married that long, ten years, on top of the fifty
years we were already. We have been celebrating being “Golden”, being
married for 50 years, all this time. Fifty was such a big
milestone. It seems like 60 came so fast! We could be “Diamond”
now, but Golden feels so warm and familiar, we’ll just continue to celebrate
that each day. We considered a fine dinner at an expensive restaurant to
celebrate this occasion. We settled on just the two of us, at Brazos Bend
State Park (with steak and lobster on a grill, and a champagne toast).
Our
thoughts are all over the place, marveling at the transition sixty years ago,
from being apart for so long, then suddenly back together every minute of every
day. Quiet. Pensive. Sharing. Me returning from two
years isolation overseas, and within hours back to the familiar embrace of
family, friends, the neighborhood, and Judy. For her, that long lonesome
wait, everything the same for her only different, wondering what I was going
through, and would everything be okay when I got back. We reunited and
the years apart melted in a moment, the memory of them a reminder to cherish
what we have in the present.
“Until
we’re old and eighty.” We’ve achieved that. Now we’re “Old and
eighty. And beyond.”
It
used to be that camping dinners consisted of heated up Dinty Moore beef stew
out of a can. Judy is rocking our mobile meals!
