Context

Anywhere else, this would not be an unusual sight; a field of ice. Here, in Deep South Texas however, this doesn’t happen much. It happened a couple nights ago.

It’s all a matter of context.

(And today it was back to eighty.)

Not everything we find in a tree

…is a bird.

It appears to be a Texas Spiny Lizard. They live in trees.

Cabin Fever!

 

I got out of the house a little bit today.  As I did, I realized I hadn’t left the house in two days!  And it’s not a very big house; we’re still in the coach.  I didn’t even go out to run.  Each day I waited for Judy to go out on errands and I ran back and forth in the motorhome for half an hour.

 

So today, we moved some things over into the house.  It’s only about 50 yards from where the coach is parked.  How cool is that; to get to test-drive a neighborhood before you buy?  We really like this neighborhood.

 

Mike and Linda, at the house we’re buying, let us have a closet to store stuff in until they move out at the end of the month.  Judy has done some shopping the last couple days for kitchen gadgets and household supplies we’ll need when we move in.

 

It has been below freezing the last two nights, so we disconnected the fresh water hose.  We’ve been running off the tanks the last couple days and the hose has been lying on the ground on the north side of the coach frozen.  I dragged it out into the sun today to thaw, then hooked it back up to replenish the tank.  One more cold night and we’re done.  65 degrees projected for tomorrow.  We’re going to get way out of the house.  We haven’t birded in a week.  We’re heading for the south end of South Padre Island about eighty miles away.  We’ll go get some marine environment birds we haven’t seen for the year yet. 

 

 

I suppose

We could have a real close-up of the bird.

Pauraque revealed

And now, filling the frame.

We haven't been homeless

We haven’t been homeless, but we have been houseless for the last six years. We decided to change that.

We just bought a house in Sandpipers Resort. We get to move in the 1st of March. It will be good to have a stationary house as home base. When we’re in South Texas, we’ll leave the motorhome on the lot at Gulf Waters so we can stay there on the beach whenever we want. We’ll continue to roam the country in the motorhome in the summer.

From the living room looking north past the front bathroom to the office/television room.


The office/television room.


From the living room looking south past the dining room and kitchen toward the bedroom.


The bedroom.

The master bath.

It’s 1,200 square feet; a lot more space than we’ve had lately.

Sleeping Pauraque

Here it is. A little closer. A sleeping bird camouflaged as leaf litter. It’s a side view. His head is to the right. His eyes are closed.