Friends and family,

We are spending Thanksgiving week in the Rio Grande Valley. “The Valley” is the area where Texas, Mexico, the Rio Grande River and the Gulf of Mexico all converge. It is a wonderful mixing of cultures, habitats and wildlife. There are wintering birds here from all over North America. “The Valley” is the northern range of birds from Central and South America.

We went to the flea market in Brownsville looking for Mexican ceramics and instead found amazing “gorditas” and “taquitos” (Mexican food). We went to the Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge hoping to see an ocelot and instead discovered an enormous alligator, about 12 feet long. We went to the South Padre Island Birding Center to observe shore birds and instead discovered two more alligators, as well as an amazing assortment of shore birds.

We hope that you enjoy the photos.

Happy Thanksgiving from Dennis and Michael

The following pictures were taken by Dennis

And the following pictures were taken by Mike

For our first camping trip since the house flood last spring, Mike and I spent a long weekend at the South Llano River State Park, Oct 14 – 17. It is one of our favorite state parks and we usually get there once or twice a year. It has great birding and is on the Monarch Butterfly migration route. The average peak date for the Monarch migration is Oct 20, so we had plenty of butterflies (most of which were moving too fast to catch with our cameras or net) but the birding was below average. Nevertheless, we had a great time, hiked ourselves into blisters and exhaustion, and got completely away from the day to day life in the big city.

We got to sleep with the windows all open and were serenaded by insects all night long. We had an amazing full moon, with a clear sky day and night. We got to swim in the river and walk in the woods. And we saw deer, armadillo, lots of wildlife and farm stock, and a small brown wild pig whom we chased into the woods only to find a stand of hundreds of Butterflies. It was fun. 

 

 

This week, I got away for a quick trip to visit my brother David and his wife Carol in Memphis. Mike was not able to go because he still had to work. (He plans to retire next Spring. We are ready.) It had been over a year since we had been able to visit David and Carol, and this was very relaxed, with very little running around and a fair amount of just visiting.

I almost delayed the trip again because the weather forecast was so gloomy. But I had only scattered showers on the way there – and beautiful days there and for the drive back. I stayed in a motel on the way and camped on the way back.

Although we knocked around a bit and ran some errands, the big outing was a few hours walking at the Zoo.

With no more ado, some pictures:

Driving into heavy Rains.

Pink Flamingo

Hippo

Crocodile

Grizzly

Sandhill Crane

Bull Elk

Cheetah

Green Aracari

Male Lion – who looked intimidating as he marched towards me. But who just lay down before getting too close.

Primitive Mask in one of the animal houses

American Snout – in Atlanta Texas – The butterfly migration is on in East Texas

Mission Tejas State Park – Near Alto, TX

Dawn at Mission Tejas State Park

This evening, we have been back in the house for almost two weeks. Although not completely settled, it seemed like it’s time to share some photos of our rehabilitated (if not resettled) home.

The Living Room

The Kitchen

The Dining Room

The Master Bedroom

The Guest Bedroom  (Clearly the least settled space)

The Office

We are very happy with its recovery. And we feel like we are back at home even though it feels and looks substantially different.

We will probably try to have some sort of “open house” soon. But it will not be a “House Warming Party” – no gifts, no dinner, nor even cookies, nothing but a chance to drop by and look around and visit a while.

Thanks for all of the love and support through this,

Dennis and Mike


OMG ! I almost forgot -