Where has the month gone?

                           The booster is working and I can now have pictures & blog!!!! sometimes!

We have been in the Rio Grande Valley for over a month.  We know where towns are and know our positions here.  We work at the visitor center and are drivers on the tour & will be giving the tour talk soon.  We are still on a high learning curve but have managed to see this small place in the RGV / National Wildlife Refuge of Laguna Atascosa as home for a few months.  Emma now knows her way around.  We bike to work and have had opportunities to participate/watch the ongoing studies of the animals here.  The birds are varied and amazing, the wildlife different from what we are used to and some the same-like the coyote.  I have seen live armadillo, lots of different birds like the plain chachalaca, Mexican eagle/Crested Caracara and the Aplomado falcon which is endangered and has benefited from a captive breeding program here.  In the LRGV there are 25 nesting Alomado pairs now when in 1999 there were none.  I have yet to see the endangered elusive ocelot or the invasive nilgai, that weighs 400 to 600 pounds and looks like a huge deer, small head and runs like a horse. It is from India and purchased legally on a game ranch but it does not know boundaries and loves it here. Tonight we will be going on a biologist project counting animals at night and I might see one.  John has seen one from a distance and one person came into the visitor center thinking he saw a moose.  There are no moose in LRGV but after showing him a picture of the nilgai, he said that is what he saw! 


Home Sweet Home until just before 2014

The visitor center where we work

Perigrine Banding

They are clipping a tiny portion of the feather for further study

The bird who is very calm for she has a head cover and padded jacket on, is being set on stand for study and banding.

At the end of October we went on a outing to the Padre Island part of this NWR.  We watched a biologist check, band, and release 2 artic perigrines falcons, young females, on their way from the artic where they were born this summer.  They rest and hunt here before flying over ocean waters going south for the winter.

Liz, a volunteer, is releasing a newly banded bird.  This picture, taken by another volunteer, was perfect!

Open windows

Today at 10AM it is cool and windy and pleasant.  We have windows open and no AC.  Horray!  I have not liked it closed in with no air circulating.  We have birdsounds and wind noise.   I have been told we should see lots of different wildlife right here including a species not native to this continent  I will try to take a camera with me at all times.  Emma is enjoying her window air.  She looks out to the woods and brush and likes to watch things.  We will be going out today to civilization and shopping.  Tomorrow is a pot luck supper.  I have tried to post pictures but so far no success!

Trek to Laguna Atascosa NWF, TX

We started out on Tuesday Sept 17th in the pm.  About 70 miles into the trek we were towed to a truck place by Good Sam Emergency Service.  It took some time but we were safe and learned how they tow a big rig.  The MH smoked under the chassis and John thought it was the transmission.  It turned out to be an overfilling of transmission fluid.  We had all fluids changed before traveling.  I will deal with that cost problem when we return to Woodstock.  It was a quick fix and on we traveled.  We met up with traveling friends in VA and spent the day at President Woodrow Wilson's birthplace/museum and evening at Chili's before they headed west and we headed south to TN.  We visited friends in TN for a few days and headed to the Shilo Battlefield traveling part of the Trace National Scenic Highway.  At least it was before the shutdown.  We arrived in Los Fresnos, TX and the refuse to discover we could come into the volunteer campground but like the NPS, the federal NWR was shut up tight for the duration of the government infighting of October 1st.  So here we sit safe and sound but not volunteering for anything.  We are to think of it as a free campground.  Here's hoping the govt gets it's act together soon.  We came to learn the area and we cannot even get in to the refuge except the campground. 

John & Emma in Tennessee at a state park after Shilo

We stayed in an equestrian campground and donkeys were where we expected horses.

We have battled sugar ants in northern Texas and mashed Love Bugs and Butterflies all over the windshield and radiator coming to the Rio Grande Valley.  We are still battling ants here and creatures will try to get the upper hand.  We have our lights out and have sprayed the RV pad.  We plan to get screening for some of the places to protect against invasion.  The air conditioner is on for it is humid and in the 90's.  It is supposed to cool down soon.  I sure hope so!

Windsheild insurance snaffoooooooooooo

Our windshield had 2 very small dings in it.  Since we were going on the road again I thought they could be fixed pretty easily.  Well, nothing is easy.  After 3 calls to insurance company and two different companies coming to the motor home it now has become a replacement windshield problem.  The first company came, tried but he said he did not have the right equipment so his fix did not work and the second company said the first had tried, failed, and now the only thing to do is replace the whole huge windshield.  All over 2 dings that could have been repaired if fixed right the first time.  So now we will wait for something major to happen because we are running out of time.  What a crazy thing to happen!!!  But Texas, we hear you calling and we are almost ready!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winter in New England

John will not miss this!

But I will miss this

Countdown in two weeks

We are picking up the pace packing and getting all our ducks in a row.  It is amazing how much you plan when you close up a home and pack everything into a home on wheels for a very long adventure!  July 4th we arrived and unpacked and opened the house.  We have spent the summer house/deck/porch painting, house and yard/pond maintenance as well as cleaning, waxing, and getting maintenance on the MH and finding our next postitions.  Now it is labor day and we are reversing the process.  Texas, here here come!

Our pond at our granddaughter's wedding last September.  Where has the year gone?