Who Watches Who?

Two brother owls
sit high in the
Russian Olive tree
watching
the bipeds below
wondering
what they are watching

IXL Ranch

Morning Sky

Midnight

amazing clouds

Say hello

our abode with horses

I'm not sure about this

Turtles sunning on a log

keeping watch

yet more horses

spring blooms

out on a walk

paso fino horses

sayonara

A Day at Brazos Bend State Park

Baby Alligators in a nature preserve

Hiking buddies by one of the many fresh water ponds

Spanish moss in abundance on live oak trees

That is not a log

Lots of hiking trails. We had a gourmet picnic to boot. 

Reunion

On Saturday John and I visited our Nigerian friends in Houston -- the Dikes. I met Obie, the mother, at Exxon in the 1980s and she was pregnant at the time. She gave birth to Kimberly, who is my god child. I lost track of them and we re-united again. Obie has two sisters, Angela and Linda, who are married and have families. Kimberly is now 31, a lawyer, very pretty and very smart.  Necca, Nambdi and Charlene are her brother and sisters. (I'll get photos of them pretty soon.)  Their father, Charles, is a doctor and lives in Minnesota right now. Necca has a daughter, Zoe.  It was wonderful to see them. They are a funny, loud, kind, generous, and good looking family.  I won't lose track of them again.  

Kimberly Dike, my god daughter

A photo of the children with me a long time ago. Kim sent me this. 

Together again

The three of us

Kimberly and Obie

Obie and her grand daughter, Zoe

The sisters - Obie, Linda and Angela

my beautiful god daughter

Dinosaurs!

Marlis, John and I spent a day viewing the Morian Paleontology exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  We learned a lot! This is a very nice collection and well displayed. We didn't have enough time to see it all.

Lab room where they inspect and clean fossils. You can ask questions and we asked if  they knew what kind of sound dinosaurs made and they said they didn't know if dinosaurs had vocal chords. New evidence shows that they may have been brightly colored and feathered.

The infamous Tyrannosaurus Rex found only in western North America

Very big plant eater with small head and brain looking from ground up.

T. Rex and friend

Texas Memories

Monday, March 4 - more gray skies, high 39, wind chill at 26 degrees.  Where is the dang sun? And what about Spring!

Visiting with Texas friends, Marlis and Pat.  

Mardi Gras fundraiser and we are ready to party!

Pretty decorations at the Mardi Gras party

John gets wild and crazy in the 2nd line dance

Brenham Texas, nice town

Great restaurant in Brenham

Cool building art in Brenham

Side trip to PA for my aunt's funeral.  Waiting to take off in the cold early morning from Harrisburg. Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant sits eerily in the distance.  

More Texas friends -- Jeanne at her "tea" house in Fredericksburg. She's 90 years old and still going strong.

Jeanne with John on a windy day.

Relaxing in the evening with a good book

In Texas anywhere there is an American flag flying, the Texas flag is right beside it.  I don't even know what the Oregon flag looks like!

More Photos from Cat Spring

Sunset at the IXL Ranch

Marlis & Ralph at H Mart, Asian market

I mentioned the fabulous Asian Market - H Mart - that we went to last week.  Here's one aisle.  Marlis gave me cooking lessons for Miso soup. We got miso at H Mart and baby bok hoy, dashi (a soup base), daikon radish, shitake mushrooms, organic tofu.  Wonderful, healthy soup and easy to make with many variations. One drawback - most everything in writing  is in Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese. But the store personnel are helpful and we found the sesame paste.

A rainy, cold day and some of the horse stand with butts to the wind, against the house to get out of the North wind.  This photo is looking out our kitchen window.

Jesse, the ranch manager, has a female peacock who visits once in a while. She likes to fly up and sit on the porch rail. This time she flew to the top of the Tundra, scratching and pecking and looking for bugs.  She hangs out with the chickens who come by to look for handouts. The peacock has an outrageous squawk that has two tones and is LOUD. 

Tough Life. This is Fairchild.

Cat Photos for no good reason, just because they're cute and thriving in their new home.

Her favorite spot in the living room. 

Midnight's spot in the living room.