• Hiking,  Outdoors

    Checking in on an Old Friend at Roy E. Larsen Sandyland Sanctuary

    February 2016 February 2021 Yesterday we drove over to the Beaumont area, Lumbertson and Silsbee to be more precise, because I found a COVID-19 vaccine appointment over there earlier this week. Among our state’s list for current requirements in 1A and 1B is a BMI of more than 30. I had known this for a few weeks but vaccine distribution was far harder to find in January and February but some of the lists I had signed us up for in January were finally starting to have some movement but most didn’t have appointments by the time I saw emails or were still in the stage of, ok you are…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    The Painted Bunting Trail at Guadalupe River State Park

    Looking back at these photos from November feels like a lifetime ago. For one, it feels like nature was still abundant even if it was fall. There were butterflies and moths we saw during that Thanksgiving week we were camping—flowers blooming, nature was nature-ing. And now that we’re in this post-freeze haze and hurtling towards spring, I know growth is around the corner. But seeing these photos makes me happy. We’re going to go through the cycle once again. The Painted Bunting Trail is 2.8 miles and divided by the park road which allows you to park at one of two parking lots and allows you to make the complete…

  • Gardening

    Living Through the Snow

    This is mostly a photographic post and a write-up at the end. These photos start Sunday afternoon February 14th and end February 19th. All of the snow was basically gone by Saturday and a few chunks of ice that had fallen off the roof and into the flower beds were gone on Sunday. The two photos above were taken about 3:30 am when I got up to see if it was snowing. The glowing in the background of the second photo is a heat lamp on our lemon tree. We had a similar set up on the three citrus in the backyard. What a whirlwind last week was. I think…

  • Gardening

    The Edible Garden During and Post-Deep Freeze

    I have a bazillion phone photos and eventually, when I edit them, photos taken with my camera. In the spirit of actually posting in some kind of real time perspective instead of months later, I’m just going to share the phone photos now. I’ll break up the flower garden and general snow photos into other posts this week. This was the edible garden on the morning of February 15th when I finally bundled up enough to venture outside. It was already very cold inside and the temperature was dropping rapidly there. It looked rather peaceful out in the garden and certainly better than having 2-3′ of water topping it as…

  • Gardening

    A Flock of Cedar Waxwings

    One bright spot this week was seeing all of the little birds floofed up in their winter plumage. Some would pop into our porch to take a break from the wind, giving us a closer look at how fluffy they looked! And being that it was so cold, they weren’t intent on flying away so quickly, which meant even if we encountered them in the yard they hung around a lot longer than they usually would. Many were looking for food and unfortunately couldn’t find a whole lot. Though, the cedar waxwings managed to find our one Carolina cherry laurel that had fruit on it. I noticed the cedar waxwings…

  • Thoughts

    Making the Best of It

    (this is a video, should load, give it a minute, if not click the photo and it will go to Flickr where you can watch) I’m hoping to have the mental space (and electricity) this weekend to write-up more about this week. Until then a few bullet point items. Currently at 11:58 am on Wednesday 2/17, we have electricity. It came back on last night at 3:45pm and lasted until 8:45pm when it started doing rolling blackouts through the night. It stayed off from around 6am until 9:45 this morning and we settled in expecting to have it off the rest of the day. Still might. *who knows* Last night…

  • Thoughts

    Snowpocalypse 2021

    The full story will have to come later this week (hopefully) but Snowpocalypse 2021 is well underway. Or rather, Power Grid Armageddon is well under way here in Texas. After knowing this storm was coming for the last week, we finally got about 3″ of snow last night in the wee hours of the morning. It looks gorgeous! The downside, about 4:30 am we joined the millions of others across the state and lost power. It has not come back on. My parents are without power and my brother and SIL and their family were without until this afternoon and got it for a few hours before it went out…

  • Thoughts

    Continued Updates from The Plague

    My update last week was a little too soon on my end. I started taking a turn for the worse on Wednesday and by Thursday and Friday I had no energy, my congestion was much worse, my eyes hurt, and I was very tired. Thankfully on Saturday I started feeling better energy-wise but I’m still fairly congested. Forest also took a turn Wednesday through early Friday, spiking fevers on and off and even vomiting overnight Thursday/Friday. Luckily the fever broke and while he has some congestion he is returning to normal a little bit more every day. Chris seems to be the best out of all of us at the…

  • Thoughts

    Updates from The Plague

    I thought I’d share a quick post for those of you without social media and don’t see my posts there… Forest: He’s getting better but still have some congestion and a cough at times. We’ve been alternating children’s Zyrtec and Tylenol cough/cold/flu and that seems to help when the congestion gets annoying. Chris: He’s had it the worst out of any of us. Yesterday he finally started turning the corner with less congestion but he has brain fog and gets tired easily so there is a lot of resting going on. He’s still downing medicine and vitamins. I think he will have this cough for a good while. Me: Surprisingly…fine.…

  • Thoughts

    The Plague

    Forest at the school district COVID-19 testing center this morning. Well. Here we are. The plague has arrived at our house, courtesy of the elementary school. Forest was slightly congested late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning and we gave him Zyrtec and went on our merry way. It is almost spring and he *is* back in school so germs are going to be rampant. But last night he sounded worse and overnight he slept horribly and this morning we knew we couldn’t send him to school. Our district has a free testing site during certain hours so off Forest and I went. Really, I thought it was going to…