Well

 

Maybe it’s time for a haircut.

 

Off we go to the groomer.  Now, the back end of this one isn’t nearly as big anymore.

 

And this one has eyeballs again!

 

 

 

That black dot off to the right of the trail in the distance

 

 

It’s moving.  Something to keep an eye on.  I can’t tell what it is.

 

It looks kind of big, but it still has its face down in the grass, so no I.D.  I never see black bears here along the Rio Grande but it’s not impossible.  The can come across the river from Mexico.

 

 

It looks bigger than those snotty little javelinas we see.  Maybe it’s a feral hog.  Still keeping an eye on it.

 

Turns out it’s a javelina after all.

 

He’s browsing on something.  He doesn’t appreciate my interruption.

 

From the right side of the trail he decides to run to safety.  On the other side of the trail.

 

He’s agitated; bristly all over.

 

He pulled up at the edge of the trail to keep an eye on me; only reluctantly stepping off the trail for my passing.

 

As soon as I was by, he went right back to whatever was interesting him on the exposed side of the trail.

 

 That was yesterday.  Today I’m practicing multi-tasking.  The weather is sunny and mid-seventies.  I’m sitting on the deck enjoying the sun, and dozing.

 

 

 

 

Does this shirt

 

Does this shirt make my butt look big?

 

 

 

 

We’ve had a blog all along

 

I’ve got the address on our travel card for when we meet people we might want to keep in touch with while we’re out and about.  People that aren’t on the trip report list can check in on us on the blog, and it’s a good place to archive the trip reports.  It has reports all the way back to the year 2000!  Recently though, the blog quit taking our posts.  Talking to grandson Tony, he volunteered to set up a new blog for us.  He thinks that sort of thing is fun to do!

 We took him up on his offer and this is the result:  https://steveandjudystravels.com/

 We’re happy how it came out.  It looks much newer and fresher than the old blog!  Thank you, grandson Tony!

 

 

The osage orange

 

I first reported on this in 2009.  It’s this goofy fruit we only ever see when we’re in Missouri and I can barely remember the name of it each time.

 

Nobody likes them.  They fall off the tree and clutter the ground.

 

 

 

Nothing really eats it.  It’s speculated that it co-evolved with mastadons and mammoths and lives on now for no apparent reason.

 

 

 

Yard birds

 

Northern Cardinal

 

Green Jay

 

Golden Fronted Woodpecker

 

Curve-billed Thrasher

 

House Sparrow

 

Muscovy Duck

 

Jesse

 

 

 

4,219, 500, 56, 138 update

 

0, 0, 0, 115

 

Zero miles to go to get to Fairbanks.  Done that!

 

No birds remaining to get to 500 for the year!  Just made it.

 

No continuing education hours to go.  Made that too.

 

And still 115 counties in which to report a bird to have all 254 counties in Texas and fill in the map completely.

 

It wasn’t a goal to get all the counties recorded in Texas in 2019, we just highlighted it to track our progress.  Maybe we should set that as a goal for 2020; record at least one bird in every county in Texas, or at least get all the edge pieces.  Or we could do Colorado; that would be much easier; not nearly as many counties; only 64.

 

Arizona was so easy we’ve already done it!  Only 15 counties.

 

An interesting thing happened to our bird life-list while we were working on our year-list.  Our life-list got bigger.  In normal years, we add five or ten new life-birds to our list each year.  In 2019, by going after every bird we could get to make it to 500 for the year, we added 27 life-birds!

 

Here are the December lifers:

 

 

Home from all my trips.  That was a great adventure, but I don’t see traveling by myself again any time soon.  Judy is doing well; mostly over her shingles bumps and pain.  It’s back to Advil level.

 

 

Happy New Year!  We stayed up as late as we could!