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.

Wintering

We are enjoying our vacation and really delight in having little on our schedules.  Cloudy-rainy days are for reading. I've discovered ebook lending from the Bellville library and am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks about a black woman's cancer cells that were/are used in all kinds of medical research and her poor black family got nothing monetarily from the buying and selling of her cells. It is thought provoking and I recommend it. John is reading one of his favorite spiritual authors -- Thomas Keating. The book is Reflections on the Unknowable. He's read me excepts. It's quite good.

One thing that strikes me about living here for a while is the amazing amount of resources available as opposed to the poor, rural community where we live in Oregon.  I was in an Asian super market recently that was bigger than a super Walmart and had nothing but Asian food. It was like a trip around Asia in one big place.  Houston has a lot of top ranked medical institutions like Herman, Memorial, Methodist, Baylor, and Children's hospitals that we pass on the way into the city. Of course, the fossil fuel industry is what fuels most of the growth in the state not the least of which is the nation's fourth largest city - Houston.

I got a chance to visit St. Christopher's Episcopal church in West Houston, which has a beautiful healing chapel with a stature of the mother and child which looks more like Christ and child. See below.

Of course, the sunsets and sunrises are spectacular which the sun decides to visit us.  After mass on Sunday John and I went to a local favorite restaurant called Tony's in Sealy. John got pie and Blue Bell ice cream for breakfast. Hey! We're on vacation!  Hope all is well with you.

Healing Chapel at St. Christophers's Episcopal Church

 Sunrise

 Cherry Pie and Ice Cream for Breakfast

 View from the deck

Happy New Year from Texas

GF chelate cake I took to the party

View from the deck

The place we are renting

John and I wish  you a very Happy New Year. We celebrated with the IXL ranch family and their friends and boarders on New Year's Eve.  Steak and Lobster and the rest was pot luck. Really good food. I ate lots of desserts. Nice people, all wrapped up in horses and dogs. Most of them have known the family for years.

It's been raining a lot here and today's no exception. Road flooding has been an issue but that doesn't keep us at home. We explore the surrounding towns. We excel at being lazy and just sitting on the deck in the sun. Have seen some of our friends which is always great. Found some great Mexican restaurants. And there is always the Long Horn Saloon in Brenham Texas.  We'll get around to some day trips one of these days.  Have a wonderful, healthy and happy new year.

Fairy the cat enjoying a snooze

What retirement looks like

Winding down the New Year Eve Party in the horse barn, with horses

Tack room that served a dessert room, with dogs

on being an artist from Eckart Tolle

Merry Christmas

Crossroads Tavern or the Cat Spring Country Club not far from our place

Cats like king beds.

John and I are on the road with the cats, who are behaving very well. We've arrived in Cat Spring and the notable feature of the tiny town is the rail road that goes straight through it with an at grade intersection. We can hear the rumble and whistle of the train from our deck on the horse ranch. Comes through around 7 AM and 5 PM.  We are recovering from the five day trip and have explored Bellville, Brenham, and Sealy all of which have a library and a post office. And lots of Mexican restaurants. I'd forgotten how good Mexican food is in these parts. And then there is barbecue. Yum.

We have beaucoup horses for neighbors. This ranch boards a lot of horses. All kinds plus runs a few cow-calf pairs. Couple of big bulls.  For John's benefit we have hit two catholic churches. I like the one in Sealy because it has comfortable seat cushions. It's the little things in life.

Bellville Library on a sunny morning. Got up to 76 yesterday.

We've visited with our friends Marlis and Ralph and they have beautiful Christmas decorations. See photo. John and I sat on the deck this afternoon and enjoyed the intense sun and cool air. They've had a lot of rain here. Dust of Harney County to mud of Cat Spring. We are not complaining. We're surrounded by lots of pasture, paddocks, fences, and horses. We're about a mile from the hard road.

I've been reading lots. I recommend The Messy Truth by Van Jones about the political situation in the US now.  We have satellite TV, which we didn't have in Harney County.  I've discovered CNN and MSNBC, particularly Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. What a week in politics but we don't want to get carried away with that commentary. We're on vacation! And it's not snowing and icy!

Our favorite place to hang out. Live oak trees are wonderful.

We hope all of you have a wonderful holiday. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!  

One of our neighbors