Shoveling Sunshine
February 04, 2009
I almost would be willing to say that the things that I would have called strange or weird in past have become the normal. We have been in Bentsen Grove here in Mission for two months this season so far. During that time I have made the statement several times that "This is a strange year!" In addition to that I have heard the same statement from several other people. I cannot pin point the exact reason I feel that way so maybe it is just my imagination. We heard some people talking some time back and they were saying, "We wanted to do things differently this year than we did last year. So we added an activity." That would be a perfect statement to for us to make. It is exactly what we have done. Last year we were doing a lot of things in scheduled activities and then spending time with friends too. We have tried to do all that we did last year and add activities. A couple time a week I go to a class in quilling. It is a time to learn, to share knowledge, and enjoy the company of people that are also doing the activity. Quilling is a art or craft that uses thin strips of paper rolled up, glued, and bent to create a picture or decoration. The picture below is at least 3/4" in depth. I am considerable time from creating anything like this, but one of these days perhaps I will. In the meantime it is a lot of fun.
A WOOD DUCK CREATED BY THE INSTRUCTOR
Most of my ADULT life I have thought that to be able to share my knowledge with others and to acquire knowledge from others was a great thing to do. (I put adult in caps because there were many years in school that I had other thoughts.) Since I have been here I have been leading a session of the Bentsen Grove Computer Club each week. I am uncomfortable in calling it a class although many people do call it that. I have learned a lot from people in the meeting that I was leading. Between that and giving personal assistance to computer users I am spending a lot of time with computers. That also is fun. I really wish that I knew more about computers. I guess that I AM learning more now.
The leader of our line dancing has been gone a couple times this year so Erma has been teaching the class with help from other dancers when he was gone. I am very proud of her. She is doing a very good job of teaching. The other people come to me and tell me how good she does and they would not need to do that if it were not true. I have been stumbling along and improving slightly. I have been making CDs of the dance music. I have also made some CDs with special selections of songs for some people. I have also become the official photographer for the class. That all started because I wanted a couple pictures of my wife dancing. Which leads me to say that a person never knows what spin-offs may come from any action.
Down the road to the south is a wildlife preserve, the Rio Grande River and just across the river Mexico. At only three miles away it would be logical to think that I would have visited it frequently. But that has not been the case. I have only been inside the park once and that was with a friend who had a pass. It has several bird blinds, feeding stations, towers, and other observation locations. It is actually a World Birding Center. There were several varieties of birds to watch. The altimira oriole, the green jays, and a couple cardinal were bright splashes of color in the woods. The birds are fairly people shy but the blinds helped a lot, and of course the feeders were a big draw for the birds. I could have spent a lot more time watching and photographing them had time allowed.
AN ALTAMIRA ORIOLE IN THE WORLD BIRDING CENTER
There were also quite a few collared peccaries or javelina in the park. We were sitting in a bird blind watching for any movement around the feeders when suddenly there was movement right beside the edge of the blind. About ten peccaries slipped into sight with as much noise as fog. It has been said that a person will often smell them before they can be seen. That may be true but I did not smell a single thing and did not hear a sound until two of them decided that a single grain of corn was a prize worth a scuffle. Even then they made little noise. They technically are not pigs in spite of the fact that they look and act like pigs. Their name comes from the Spanish word for spear or javelin. The tusks in their mouths are sharpened every time they either open or close their mouth.
COLLARED PECCARIES AT A BIRD FEEDING STATION
We watch the weather channel on TV quite a bit and I see that a lot of the USA is covered with snow or ice or at least cold temperatures. Here in Mission the weather is good, the temperatures are high and the sun is shining. In fact the sun shines here so much that all the rays pile up on the driveway and every once in a while it is necessary to get out the shovel and clear a path to the Jeep. So while many people are shoveling snow we are shoveling sunshine down here in Texas.
One thing I have done is create a blog. If you want to see any of the past POTRs you can see them at dougpeaceontheroad.blogspot.com! In a period of about two weeks I posted the original 46 chapters. I will post another chapter about every month to six week.
Till later this is Doug of
Peace On The Road
