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Stop, Drop and Roll
Yesterday, Labor Day here in the U.S., we had stopped in at the McDonald’s in our town to get some recipes so we could go grocery shopping for the week. When we left to drive across the street to the store we noticed a fire to our north west that had just started within thirty minutes. By the time we left the store thirty minutes later it was flaring up even more. We didn’t think anything of it, not that it would get bad or even come closer to our house which would be several miles away by now. We went home and I took a nap and while we…
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Morning Walk
It is our first full weekend here in our new town. The first weekend we went back home, last weekend we went to the beach to visit with friends and this weekend while we are doing some things in various greater Houston areas, we are sticking to local. This morning we got up at our normal work-week time and went over to the Kleb Woods Nature Center. Chris purchased a book 60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Houston and it was listed in there as one of the places to go, plus it is relatively close to our house. We weren’t sure what we would see or if it would…
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Little Brother, Big Sister.
I finally got around to finishing the processing of the rest of the photos from our trip to DFW to see our new nephew. “What is going on here?” Chris with my parent’s dogs, Isabelle on the left and Daisy on the right giving that goofy face. Zoe looks like she’s got a brand new dolly to take care of! Blissed out with her new charge… Love the one eye open thing he’s got going! Zoe was enjoying a pear with caramel sauce and gave me a great face! Everyone had been trying to determine which chin Grayson had so that did a side by side comparison with my brother.…
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Food and other Thoughts
When we moved in Chris and I decided we’d start planning our weekly meals out in an effort to safe money and not to waste food. So far we have done well and I’ve enjoyed doing what we’ve planned. Our one night out to eat is on Wednesdays and we look forward to that. I’m sure we will be a little more hectic once Chris finds a job and we both have to come home tired from work, but right now I have house-husband so I normally have a meal ready or nearly ready to eat when I get home from work. Yes, it is nice! He did tell me…
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Wordless Wednesday | Moody Gardens Aquarium—B&W
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Helping Hands Community Garden
Chris didn’t waste time finding the community garden where we could get some plots. The garden itself is different than the one my mom and brother have at the Common Grounds garden, a bit differently run and definitely less activity from individuals. In fact, we were able to score two plots for ourselves and then Chris is working on four other empty plots since no one else is managing them. The extra food grown will go to the food bank next to the plot. Another difference is that we barely see anyone else tending their crops other than a few people, and even those people will water everyone else’s plots,…
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Settling In
Leo and Samson came home with us last weekend. They’d been at my parents’ house for a year and a half, far longer than I’d initially imagined. Since then they’d eased into life with my folks, and had been a good fill in for when Red, my parents’ cat, lost his sister Yoda last year. I think it helped ease the loneliness. And Leo, the most rascally of the two cats, came to not whack my parents unless especially spooked or ready to rough house. He also learned to give them head butts, something we are mostly able to do on command with him by making kissing noises at him.…
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Texas Wildflowers | Vernonia missurica, Missouri ironweed
While we were doing our field work in the Big Thicket this late spring and early summer we kept coming across this plant in its pre-blooming stage. No one could figure it out until finally it was identified by Ron Lance. And not much later the plant started blooming and it was beautiful! The tell-tale white stripe in the leaves helped us identify it later on without blooms. This particular plant was photographed at Tandy Hills. I was relieved to see a plant I knew among the many unknown prairie plants that abound the preserve. There were a couple of bugs we tried to photograph that were hanging out on…
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The Fall Crops
Our new place doesn’t really offer us any place to grow anything, though our landlord, who lives next door, offered to till up some space for us. Since we are only hoping to stay six months before finding a place to buy we didn’t want to mess up his yard for that short period of time. So, Chris did some research and found the local community garden, Helping Hands. We are set up with two of our own personal plots and will be taking care of three additional plots until someone else gets those. In addition to growing our own vegetables and fruits, leftovers and extras will go to the…
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Wordless Wednesday | Moody Gardens Rainforest Part I
*Ok, nearly wordless, but the next several Wednesdays will be from the trip, so they will be wordless. I worked at Moody Gardens in 2001-2002, my senior year of college, as an Interpretive Naturalist, the people who man the touch tanks and talk about the exhibits. We recently went back for a visit a few months ago. The aquarium was still the same, the same smell, the same sounds, and mostly the same exhibits, but the rainforest was completely re-done after Hurricane Ike did some flood damage to it a few years ago. Here’s some of what we saw.*