Travel Report – The Hermits' Rest

Happy Homecoming

We were able to stay at our campsite until I was finished working for the day, which was very pleasant. I got a bit of walking in, but mostly worked, even on the drive home. You have to help users with questions!

My favorite bird photo of the day. The chickadees were everywhere and had a lot to say!

We had a couple of adventures on the way home. It appears that the motor home was low on all fluids, so the oil we’d added earlier was not sufficient. We also needed coolant and wiper fluid. We got those at a gas station where Lee also enjoyed a chat with a nice female trucker, who he was able to convince could tow a car like we do. She had such a sweet smile. Sometimes chance meetings can really make your day.

There was another fluid low, the DEF you have to add to diesel vehicles now. As Lee was valiantly trying to pull into the Milano Cefco gas station that dispenses it from pumps, I had to inform him it was closed for remodeling. Now I’ll get to pour some in manually. It’s interesting that they are remodeling the gas station, because it’s only a couple of years old. I guess the newer fancy gas station just down the road is big competition!

Fictional image of Lee handing me the stuff to pour.

As nice as the trip was, it was also good to get home. I was pleased to hear Kathleen’s stories about how she’s been working with the horses and what she accomplished in just a few days. She needs exercise, so she’s whipping them into shape.

She sent me this to show how shiny she got Drew.

She told me that Mabel hadn’t liked being in the round pen today and she jumped it to get to the other horses. I guess that’s proof she isn’t crippled. So Mabel got to spend some time hanging out in the pen by herself. She does look beautiful, though.

I got to work with her a little going back to the pasture, she has work ahead of her but Kathleen says she’s already making progress.

I guess the pen isn’t very high if you’re tall as her.

I also enjoyed my reunion with the turkeys. Darryl Junior was all puffed up and impressed with himself, showing all his glorious tail feathers to impress Connie. I’m glad he doesn’t realize how skimpy his tail feathers are. He will look better when new ones grow in.

Well, I’ve put off election results as long as I can, so I’d better check out the primary results. And I need to see how the war is coming along. As always, I hope the civilians just trying to live their lives can stay safe. I know people on both sides whose homes are shuddering when missiles land. I am so tired of bloodshed.

Work and Life, Balanced

I must congratulate myself for creating such a pleasant outdoor workspace today at our campsite that I didn’t have to move inside at all. I guess I should thank Mother Nature for providing pleasant temperatures and no crazy winds.

The portable table makes a great and spacious desk. I could watch Cardinals and Carolina Wrens bopping around while I listened to meetings. And thanks to the awning, I was in shade most of the day. It helped that I didn’t need two monitors for anything today.

I took a short walk in the morning and was able to get photos of a few more birds, some of whom I’ve been hearing but not seeing. The light was bad, but I could tell what they were!

Lunch hour gave me time for another walk at 2 pm (lunch Pacific Time). I enjoyed shady paths and some ups and downs. The highlight was finding the incredibly beautiful cream wild indigo (Baptisia leucophaea). The blossoms are breathtaking.

Leaf-cutter ants decorated with juniper berries rather than leaves

I couldn’t NOT go look at the waterfowl, but I mostly watched ducks dabble and dowitchers dig. Dandy! The Ibises were also present.

I worked pretty late so that was it for hiking. I still got 10,000 steps, and the big camera gave my arms a workout, too. I think I balanced work and life pretty well today. Now enjoy my “artsy” photos.

Joy! Twice in One Day!

The world is so complicated. There’s a lot of negativity going around. So the fact that I was able to feel real joy twice today is a sweet and precious thing. What does it say, about, well, everything, that the source of my joy both times was birds?

It’s because birds are tiny (or larger) packets of joy.

I’m sure thankful for my animal friends, my birds and horses especially, for helping me get through the weirdest of times! Today was a great example.

I took my morning hike today to a part of Nail’s Creek (Lake Somerville) park I never made it to before. It was pretty in a dry, post-oak Savannah kind of way.

I followed the path of Cedar Creek, which was mostly dry, and saw lots of wetland plants and hog damage. I saw hogs there last year, so I wasn’t surprised. I was hoping to get a better view of the pelicans and snow geese we’d seen earlier (and heard—much honking).

I heard snow geese, but when I zoomed in I realized that both geese and pelicans were flying around

I did find them, but still couldn’t see them much better.

As I was taking pictures of ducks, sandpipers, yellowlegs and such, some big birds showed up. They were black, but I had a hard time figuring out much about them, even through binoculars. Were they Anhingas? Black geese?

Finally I got close enough to see their bills. They were ibises! They eventually started making sounds, so Merlin confirmed they were white-faced (there are other dark ones). They dug in the shallow water and hung out on a snag in the water. It was most entertaining, and I was thrilled to get to watch them up close. By the time I heard Sandhill Cranes again that weird feeling in my chest that could only be joy burst forth.

A friend asked me if I felt any other emotions along with joy. Yeah, there’s a poignant sadness when I realize joy is just a momentary feeling. I had tears looking at the birds. But that’s what makes joy so special — its rarity and fleeting nature.

Phlox brought happiness! That’s good, too.

Anyway, the day continued and we took a drive around the area. We visited Yegua Creek Park, where Catherine from the comments section’s husband was camping. We missed him but did enjoy checking out the campsites and views.

We then drove to where the dam for Lake Somerville is, which has many camping areas. After going over the whole dam, we took the scenic route back. There are some nice properties in the area.

Back at our campsite, I wanted to take the good camera out to try and get better pelican pictures. We went to the day use area, where lots of birds were gathered. I helped a young man find his first Northern Shoveler ducks, and his excitement was fun to observe.

Then I got all excited because I spotted a Black-necked Stilt. The second joyful moment.

I jumped up and down and made happy noises, which Lee enjoyed. He said that’s why he likes to go with me sometimes, just to see me all happy. Aww. Here are a few more photos from the day.

The day ended with salmon patties made into sandwiches with really good potato salad. Lee got to cook on his little grill outdoors, so he had fun, too.

Thanks to all of you who’ve been reading the last few days. It’s encouraging to think I entertain you a bit. At least it’s a brief diversion!

A Beautiful Day if You Ignore Current Events

I’m gonna say it: I don’t like wars. I don’t like killing innocent people. So, when yet another one is started, apparently quite well planned, and no one tries very hard to stop it, it’s hard to enjoy a lovely day in nature.

This beautiful checkered skipper on a gorgeous smooth phacelia (*Phacelia glabra)* flower tried to distract me.

I wanted to enjoy the outdoors, though, especially after missing out on hiking and birding yesterday! Nature has her way of sneaking into my psyche and making me forget everything except what’s happening where I am in the current moment. I’m so grateful for that!

Carolina Wren serves to amuse and entertain

We enjoyed a quiet morning watching wrens investigate the underpinnings of our vehicles. I sure hope they aren’t nesting in there! Having a second morning with few neighbors was a real treat.

At last I was able to walk down the familiar trails of Lake Somerville State Park. It’s fun to explore new trails, for sure, but it’s equally interesting to see how places you’re familiar with change from year to year or in different seasons.

Today there were many shore birds on the lake, which is still quite low. Hundreds of White Pelicans, various sandpipers, dowitchers, and ducks entertained me. I was proud to ID Northern Shovelers, Green- and Blue-winged Teals, and Mallards by sight. Glad for the binoculars!

The pelicans were too far away for good photos until they decided to change location, when I could get some flight photos. These are all from the phone camera.

I was delighted to find more early wildflowers in bloom than I expected. There was even at least one I’d never seen before! It was like walking through a fairy garden with all the small, bright flowers along the path, including my beloved spring beauties. Ahh. Pink perfection.

I didn’t see any wild mammals but people with fancy trail horses showed up across from us, so I got to enjoy them getting tacked up. The park did fill up today. I sorta got PTSD from my last trip where I chastised Scouts when I saw a big gathering at the next camping area. Thankfully they only had one screamer.

With all the bright, blue sky and pleasant warmth, we ended up staying outside most of the day, just enjoying the peace. It was just what I needed! And to add icing to the cake, Sandhill Cranes decided today was migration day (they are legal migrants) and regaled us with calls for a long time. Safe travels!

Ooh I’m tired. I’m just going to photo dump the butterflies and other birds. See if you know what they are. It’s a quiz!

Survived! I’m an Hour Away from Home!

Note to self: stop blogging when you’re exhausted and have a headache. These stories would be a lot funnier if I were able to think straight.

Short version of my day: complex work events starting early, afternoon break photographing little birds, heading out in motor home, engine issues, successful trip to state park, manageable challenges. And we are here!

I’ll explain the work stuff later. I need to make some decisions. But I will say that “having” to go sit in the birding hut and watch the sparrows feeding made everything much better. All those studies saying nature is good for you aren’t wrong.

It was warm and sunny, so I sat in front of the hut (I will get blinds soon) very quietly. The White-crowned Sparrows weren’t at all bothered by my presence and hopped pretty close to me as they pounced on whatever they were eating. I was able to test out the capabilities of the iPhone 17 Pro camera, and I was not disappointed. At last, no more bird-shaped blobs.

Mostly I took pictures of a few females.

I also got the Great Blue Heron sunning and a House Sparrow thinking about nesting in a hollow fence post, plus an orange sulphur butterfly and a tiny spider .

Eventually we left to go camping for the first time in quite a while. It’s nice to have the family home to watch all those animals. Too bad we spewed oil all over the road. It seemed as if the dipstick wasn’t replaced right. Or we have a worse problem, but Lee got us going and we got to meet the nice man who owns the new Valero in Milano.

What’s she blathering about? I don’t know. Let’s go eat.

Yep. Now we’re back at Lake Somerville State Park in the equestrian camping area, in our favorite site. Being surrounded by trees and birds makes all the trouble worth it. This place is so quiet. I’m looking forward to hiking familiar trails and maybe seeing flowers. I just walked around the camping loop and enjoyed plenty of birds and wildlife.

I also enjoyed the scenery in the late afternoon. There are so many big trees out here in the post oak savanna.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I enjoyed walking around and taking them!

This apparently once held a beautiful moth.

The Good, the Bad, and the Stinky

We had some little adventures getting out of the campsite, but all was not lost, because I did get an hour of birding in this morning and got photos of birds I wanted to see.

And plants! The heart leaf hibiscus opened up and I got photos!

I also found out from the birding volunteer that there used to be a roller skating rink at the park during the years between when the Rectory was built and when the land became a State Park. There are no signs of it now, but a 92-year-old visitor described it to the Lake Corpus Christi State Park folks. It turns out the water tower was from when the land was a farm. So many changes!

And now the park has the nicest bathrooms ever.

Anyway, I was very happy to capture the elusive White-eyed Vireo and Great Kiskadee today, even though the lighting wasn’t perfect. At least the sun came out!

That was one of the good things for the day. The worst thing I have no photographs of. Be glad I can’t transfer smells through the blog, though. I’d broken the kitchen faucet on the way down (improper bungee cording) and we’d used our “nice” (from Target) rug to mop up the mess that happened when the water was turned on. So, I set it outside to dry, but every morning the fog would wet it again, then I’d forget to bring it in when it dried back off.

Allow me to interrupt with a picture of one of those lightweight flying things I saw yesterday.

The upshot was that the rug was still outside last night. When I went to put it in the storage area to take it home to clean it, I thought it smelled bad, but put it in, anyway. When Lee opened the bin later he nearly gagged. It didn’t smell a little; it smelled a lot. Like some virile woodland creature had decided to mark it as his territory with extra-musky urine. Not good. We will replace the rug, because there’s no way we’d take it home. The dogs would have gone crazy. I felt bad putting the odiferous parcel in the dumpster, knowing people would be opening it to add refuse.

The next stinker came when we went to leave and Lee had forgotten to release the hand brake. That also was very loud. But we quickly fixed that!

The other good thing that happened was that I finally found my previous phone. It had been hiding in, of all things, my phone holder I use when riding in the motorhome. Well, now that it’s charged up, I have a better phone camera again.

We made it home just fine, and of course I immediately went to check on my livestock. The horses were quite insistent that they were starving, as were the fowl. I fed the birds, and discovered that Darryl had done his manly duty so well that Connie started laying eggs again! No one has told her or the hens that they are supposed to wait until spring.

It was good to be back home with all the buddies. I was happy to see my gift from my son—it’s a new door for my tack room. It’s too heavy for him to lift it by himself to install it, though! It looks good where it is, though.

Happy Kwanzaa to all who celebrate!

Little Holiday Gifts

I promised some plant photos, and I’ll add them here, but first I wanted to share the gifts I received on this Christmas morning. Now, my family is only exchanging handmade gifts, which we will exchange later. So my gifts today were experiences.

I set out for a morning hike with just my binoculars (arms are tired from hoisting the telephoto lens). Of course, I later wished I’d brought one of the Canons. I just decided to enjoy what I saw without worrying about recording it. And I received so many beautiful gifts.

Three Queen and one Snout butterfly on Mexican Winged Crownbeard.

The butterflies were magical, especially around these nondescript plants with tiny blossoms, Narrowleaf Forestiera (Forestiera angustifolia). The blossoms may be tiny, but butterflies, bees, and even flies love this source of winter nectar.

I knew they were blooming because I heard a plant buzzing with pollinators, then I saw dozens of butterflies covering the bushes like ornaments. There were the Snouts I saw yesterday, joined by Queens, Monarchs, and Red Admirals. What a gift to see this reminder that something is blooming all year round here.

The other gifts of the morning occurred while I was at the bird blind area. First, I was able to help three families understand what they were seeing by pointing out the birds and telling about the plants. I enjoyed the thanks and getting to share some of what I’ve learned as a Master Naturalist and Merlin fan.

My reward was spending enough time at the blind to see fun bird behavior. For example, the birds decided it was bath time and I got to watch four Orange-crowned Warblers splashing and splashing in the puddle made by the drip waterer. They were then joined by Cardinals. The blurry photo shows where they were.

Right after that a chubby little Yellow-rumped Warbler took a bath right in front of me. It was so fluffy and scruffy and wiggly. If I had the good camera, there would be some charming photos. Instead you get this.

Geez. You can’t even see the bird. This phone camera is a mess.

But the thing is that I saw all this, which is what matters. Between all this fun and talking to my friends and family, Christmas morning was wonderful. I hope you can find beauty and joy wherever you are today. Who needs presents when you have nature and the meaning of the season.

Now, as my gift to you, here are a few of my favorite plant and scenery photos from yesterday and today!

Go enjoy your day!

Nature Overload

Today I probably went overboard with nature photography, since I drug/dragged both the camera with the telephoto and the camera with the macro lens all over Lake Corpus Christi State Park and took as many pictures as I wanted both distant and very close.

This White Peacock butterfly is one of the most beautiful natural objects I found.

I got up early to go to the birding area right after the birds were fed. However, conditions were not ideal. It was so foggy that it sounded like rain falling on the RV roof, and certainly was not great for bird photos.

I do love the effect of this Cardinal swooping in through the fog, though.

I got lots of sounds on Merlin, though it was acting up, and I did manage to get photos of many species, less foggy as the morning progressed.

The most interesting birds to observe were the Red-winged Blackbirds. At first, only females were at the feeders. That gave me lots of time to really admire their plumage. The stripes in various rich browns are quite striking.

At least 45 minutes after the females showed up, males made their appearance. There were many juveniles, too. Much mass feeding then occurred.

Later, after the sun came out some, I got photos of the birds near the lake. The Great Blue Heron and Great Egret were entertaining, as usual.

In between, I walked around with the macro lens camera and found many tiny things. I’m going to just share butterflies in this post, because I’m really tired!

Yeah. I’m too tired to write more. I’ll be back tomorrow for an all-nature Christmas.

The Dead of Winter Is Not Dead

I had the loveliest day of bird and plant watching here at Lake Corpus Christi State Park! This is a great place in southern Texas, where many plants and animals native to northern Mexico mingle with organisms from farther north. This makes for fun observations!

An example of the beauty here. Pink cenizo (Texas sage) with gorgeous shrubby blue sage, both native to Texas and northern Mexico.

On my morning hike through a shrubby woodland I was delighted to see many blooming plants and others with interesting seed pods. It even smelled nice to walk through the misty woods listening to the “exotic” Great Kiskadees and Green Jays (plus an Audubon’s Oriole).

I even left some out. It was fun to see what grows down here, like palm trees and giant reed. I enjoyed the winter scenery.

After my long walk I came back so Lee and I could get vital supplies (coffee creamer and blackberry cobbler). We enjoyed looking at the town of Alice, Texas, then came back just in time for some rain showers. When they were over, I went out to the other part of the trail to enjoy the sunshine.

I looked at the very nice birding setup they have here, then made it to the CCC Rectory on the lake. It’s one of their nicest structures.

I discovered the volunteer who leads the bird walks waiting for someone to take out, so I said I’d go. Then a French-Canadian woman bicycled up and joined us. It was a challenge teaching her bird names in English, but she liked the Green Jays and shiny Great-tailed Grackles. I showed her some plants, then headed back to our campsite.

As if that wasn’t enough for one day, I had my monthly tarot group this evening. It was interesting, as always.

No tarot photo, so here a butterfly on dog poop (Vesta crescent)

Tomorrow I’ll get out the good cameras and maybe get some better photos. If I can rouse myself.

Rambling Along

Yep, we fired up good ole Seneca, hooked the Jeep up, and left on a journey —during the work week! Well, the company I am contracted to takes two weeks off at the end of the year, so the contractors do, too. Other than not being paid, it’s nice to have a break. So, no complaints over what I can’t control, and I’m ready for fun.

I now have a rock as a birding station sign. My idea of fun.

Before we left, I got all the plants and animals cared for. They have my son to watch over them, so all is well for them. I just miss them. I enjoyed the birds, as usual, and got 52 species before we left! The variety of sparrows, warblers, woodpeckers, hawks, and waterfowl astounds me.

On the other hand, the sheer number of grackles by the restaurant where we ate dinner also astounded me.

But wait, before we left I got pictures of what Lee and I thought was a broken tree limb. That’s what it looked like from a distance, but when I got closer it was clear that it was a sapling with just one branch, covered with yellow leaves. I will try to get closer when we get back, to figure out what kind of tree it is. Many species have yellow autumn leaves here.

We were happy to get that figured out, and were able to make the familiar trek through the Eagle Ford Shale region, which is full of oil wells and wind turbines. Texas is big on wind and solar as well as oil! Eventually we got to Lake Corpus Christi State Park, which I chose because I figured it would be quiet at Christmas. It’s not a “destination” park like some of them.

We managed to arrive before dark, which made setup easier. It’s a pull-through site, which is also convenient.

I got a little walk in and got to see some butterflies, plants, and a nice group of young deer at dusk. I can’t wait to try other trails.

We went to dinner at our favorite barbecue place, Smolick’s Smokehouse, where we ate last time we were here. The staff was still overly friendly and the history of Mathis, Texas all over the walls is fascinating. I enjoyed pulled pork with braised cabbage. Yum.

Lee told me to quit remarking about the grackles, but they always crack me up in big groups. Note the ghostly grackle in the upper middle. Spooky.

I’m looking forward to a few days of rest and exploration. Getting to explore is the best gift Lee could give me. I bid you good night as I listen to coyotes in the distance.