Sunset

Goodnight from Wright Patman Lake, Texarkana, Texas...Rocky Point.

Until next time...

Yummy...

It is time for a fried pie.

Big Jakes Barbecue in Texarkana has these. We visit here when we are in the area.  They are not as good as my mama used to make, but close enough.

Peach is the only one I will purchase.

Until next time...

Our First Stop

Our first stop is south of Texarkana, Texas, at a Corps of Engineers Park.  We stayed here last year and knew what to expect.  It is a nice park where we plan on staying for at least a week for some r and r time...much needed!!!  It is a nice site without and close campers, AND it is close to the bath house.

Until next time...

Our Last Week

this season.

I mowed two trails here at the refuge, and it hurt to be mowing all these bluebonnets down. You can see, there are lots of them on the trail.

It was fun to be mowing on the prairie though and it looked really nice...all in preparation for our festival.

As I got closer, there seemed to be more of them...oh no! 

It kept me entertained as I noticed more and more different flowers blooming...all the better for our participants on the "blooming" walk.

Here we are building a protection fence around a nest of a prairie chicken.

We are up to 16 nests as of today...better than last year, and it is still early.

Things are going well!!!

She seems to want to nest far, far away from the road.

The two little dark spots in this shot, are the two men hauling out the fencing...100' of pliable hardware cloth.

We do this four times on Tuesday and three times on Wednesday.

Needless to say, we were pretty worn out volunteers on Friday.

Mike, biologist, would go out first to locate the nest, then he would mark off a distance to put the fence so the nest is centered.

This bird flushed, so we got to get up close and personal...14 eggs!!! What a treat.

Now the eggs are gathered by Rebecca (biologist).

She weighs them, measures them, and can then tell how far along they are to hatching.

She also records where the nest is, the date, and takes a picture using a measurement of the grass.

It is all so fascinating, and we are so glad we were a part of all this.

The eggs are then placed back in the nest and we leave as quickly as possible to allow her to come back.

We have had our volunteer going away meal along with gifts and thank yous from the staff as of Sunday we will all be on our way to other places for the summer. Our place will be in Maine...will you be making the journey with us?

Until next time...

Booming and Blooming

The day started at 6:00 am. Everyone gets here early...they are excited to see a prairie chicken and see they will.

We have 4 vans, two we borrowed, and two that we have here at the refuge.

I am ready and on the trailer with a scope set up.

It was so exciting to see the look on faces that have never experienced this before...the prairie chicken on the lek displaying in all his glory.

I was delighted to show this little girl her first prairie chicken. She reminded me of our granddaughter, looks a lot like her and she is the same age.

She could hardly pull herself away from my scope!!!

My job at the trailer was over by 11:00 am and after that, I helped Mike Morrow on a plant walk. He said that was the best plant walk he has had.

The wildflowers are really beautiful this year.


This is our last hoorah!!! We will be making our way north this Saturday...only one more working day here this year. It's been a good three months even though we did not get to work with the heavy equipment...it just has been too wet to get out in the field.

The festival was a huge success and made a good ending to our time here.

Until next time...

Fixes

There are two historical plaques here at the refuge. They are nice, but needed some fixing up so they were easier to read.

I wanted to do this last year but did not pursue it.

Wallace and I participated in reviving some of these plaques with the historical group in the Valley a few years back and thought we could bring them back to life here.

I went out and fixed the number 8...it looked great...so I went in to John, asked him to come look, and he must have been pleased because he gave me the okay to do it.

John did not give me the okay to paint the background, so here is the finished product on this one.

We have been sprucing up the refuge, getting ready for our festival this weekend...come one, come all!!!

Until next time...

River Road

After work yesterday, the six of us volunteers jumped in the truck to take a little ride on river road to view the wildflowers that are blooming now.

We stopped quite a few times for pictures.

There were bluebonnets everywhere!!! This looked like a river of blue.

The San Bernard River does not have much water in it at this time.

There were a few white bluebonnets in one area where we passed by.

We enjoyed seeing how many flowers we knew.

Jenny and George are new to the area and are really interested in learning all they can.

This is what the road looks like...pretty sandy. We went as far as we could before we turned around...we did NOT want to get stuck.

Wildflowers were not the only thing we saw. I pointed out this Upland Sandpiper...cute surrounded by all the bluebonnets. Of course, it had to be into the sun, so it is washed out. We saw a herd of deer (16), and the jackrabbit was neat to watch with those big ears. Some had never seen one before. I could not get a decent picture of the back of the ears.

We came upon two of these water moccasins. It was ready to strike!!! And to think, we have been walking all around this prairie, sometimes at night!!!

I really like snakes for the most part, but this one...no thank you.







I yelled out...STOP...when I noticed this flower (new to me), false dragon's head...looks like a miniature foxglove.

Our festival is this weekend, the 12th and 13th...come on out and we will show you one of our prairie chickens.

As some of you say...the end!!!

Until next time...

PSJA Class Reunion

Wallace's class of '59 is the first one, my class of '61 is below. His class had a total of 13, my class had a total of 10...there were a few spouse's in the picture of my class.

I ended up with the little bear from our table, and the chair I was sitting in had the winning sticker underneath. The prize was a cd with songs from the band "Almost Patsy Cline Band."  They are a great band who played and sang some wonderful tunes.

Danny and I were always next to each other in our yearbook, so I just had to have one more shot of us together.

A really nice guy.

The reunion was held in Kerrville, Texas at the Inn of the Hills.

This is at the picnic near Boerne, Texas at the Texas Farm Country Club.  Nice accommodations, great barbecue with a relaxing atmosphere.

At our table, from left to right:  Me, my cousin Amy Jo, her dad Howard (my uncle), my cousin's hubby Larry, his wife Sue, my sister Murriel with hubby Tommy (he was the only one at the table who did not graduate with us) and Wallace's nephew, Mike. Wallace was taking our picture. People used to say, "you need to be careful who you talk about in San Juan, Texas!"

Boy, there sure are a lot of OLD people at these reunions. LOL.
A great time was had, that included a lot of laughing!!!

Until next time...