2020 Year In Review

January

January did not start out as our best month!  Mark was recovering from back surgery and started physical therapy twice a week.  He had his last follow-visit with the surgeon on the 16th and got the all-clear. 

After surviving bronchitis (Mark) and an upper respiratory infection (Teri) [which resulted in the cancellation of my vitrectomy eye surgery], we decided to go on a mini vacation. 

We headed down to Rockport, Texas (one of my favorite places on earth).  We decided to stay in a hotel instead of loading up the RV.  We stopped at Aransas NWR before getting into Rockport and saw a few Whooping Cranes and a few other nice birds.

Aransas Boardwalk. 

Newly built after Hurricane Harvey.

Most of Goose Island State Park is closed for construction due to hurricane Harvey.  Even though we were not able to get to all parts of the park, we still saw some great birds.

Big Tree is always worth a stop.  This amazing Live Oak tree has been around for hundreds of years.

Big Tree

Sunset at beautiful Goose Island State Park

After a couple of nights in Rockport we packed up the car and boarded the ferry to Port Aransas.  

Hard to see but there is a dolphin swimming with us.

The Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center was totally destroyed by hurricane Harvey in August 2017.  The boardwalk has been rebuilt and is better than the original.  We spent about 3 hours on the boardwalk and had great - up close - looks at some wonderful birds.

New boardwalk

Little Blue Heron shading the water for a better view of the fish.

Green-winged Teal

White Ibis

Tourist photo-op.

From there we headed to South Padre Island where we stayed for two nights.  We saw some wonderful birds at the World Birding Center and ate some great seafood.

When the lights are flashing, 

a high number of pelicans are on the bridge.

The two-and-a-half-mile-long Queen Isabella Causeway is the only road connecting South Padre Island to the mainland.

Entrance to the island.

Some interesting shops on the island.

February 

By February we were back to our old selves and ready to get out and have some fun.  In anticipation of a week-long visit from Fred (Biologist - Green Lake NFH, Maine), we started going to birding spots close to our home. 

We have a place in the Texas Hill Country.  It's a beautiful area of Texas with rolling hills, and big ranches.  You never know what you will see behind a fence.  Zebra, Bison, Elk, large horned animals of some kind.  I don't know why anyone would want a kangaroo (or two), but they can be found here too.

We picked Fred up at the San Antonio airport on the 25th and had a wonderful week birding. He was able to stay at the Inn here at our RV resort.

Birding is best early in the mornings so we saw some pretty spectacular sunrises from the Inn.

We visited several birding "hotspots" in the area.  Flat Rock Lake, Heart of Texas Fish Hatchery, Cooks Slough, Uvalde Fish Hatchery, S. Llano River State Park, Junction Sewage Plant, Lost Maples State Park and the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center.

Fred thoughtfully brought us the perfect hostess gift.

Needhams. 

In case you didn't know, they are chocolate and coconut perfection!

Also this year we have spent many hours studying birds for our upcoming trip to Columbia and practicing Spanish through Duolingo.

We use the flash card method to study birds:

We studied 400 birds for our trip.

March

It was time for our much anticipated two week trip to Colombia. Unfortunately, Covid-19 hit and all our plans were postponed.  We rescheduled this trip for October.

We spent the month of March at home.

April

We spent the month of April at home.

May

We spent the month of May at home.  

June

By June we had cancelled our summer volunteer plans and I had rescheduled my eye surgery for the 24th.

July

We sent in a deposit for a 3-week trip to Brazil next June and started the arduous task of learning 807 birds!  Happy birthday to me.

August

We spent August at home.  I bought a lot of colorful yarn and spent many hours crocheting afghans.

September

On Sunday August 30th Mark told me he wanted to buy a house and had found one he wanted to look at.  On Monday August 31 we met the buyers realtor at the house.  On Tuesday, September 1 we met our realtor at the house and made an offer.  On Thursday, September 3 our offer was accepted.  On Friday September 11 we had the house inspected and requested closing be in two weeks. On Monday September 28 we signed all the paperwork and the house was ours.

October

Our rescheduled trip to Colombia was once again cancelled.  Hopefully sometime next year we get to take this trip.  

We sold our park model house and spent the month fixing up our new house and moving.

8' fence started.

Water feature for the birds.

We planted 2 Big Tooth Maples 

for beautiful fall color.

November

We volunteered as Bird Host at Goose Island State Park in Rockport, Texas.

We hit one million views on the blog.

December

We spent the first three weeks of December giving bird walks at Goose Island. We drove back and forth (4 hours one way) a couple of weekends. By this time we were anxious to get back home and start settling into our new house. Since the bird walks were not very well attended and there were very few people in the park, we decided to pack up and return home before Christmas.

2021

Stay tuned - We have lots of "tentative" plans for 2021.  

Who Came Up With That Dumb Idea?

Mark needed a desk for our office/game/craft/whatever room.  He did some research and found what he needed at Office Depot.  After ordering on-line we went to pick it up at the store.

These are all the parts that came out of the box. 

They thoughtfully included a parts list.  There are 84 screws and 90 other types of fasteners.

Someone had this hilarious idea:

Mark thought it was pretty funny too and immediately ignored it.

This handy-dandy little tool was included.  Why anyone thought this was better than a screw driver, I’ll never know.

Amazingly the desk held together even though Mark didn’t use the proper tools.  Soon after, a file cabinet and two bookcases were added.

First Month at Goose Island

It’s hard to believe our first month here is already over and we’re into our last month. 

Our bird walks have picked up considerably.  The park started advertising them a little bit and that helped get the word out.  Mark and I walk around the park every evening wearing our volunteer shirts (we call this roving).  We talk to a lot of folks at the bird blinds. 

We have a limit of 8 people on our bird walks. Masks are mandatory.

The Buffalo Solders came to the park for a couple of days.  They were very interesting.  These are Parks and Wildlife employees that travel the state giving presentations.

 We’ve seen lots of birds. 

Wilson's Snipe

White Ibis

American Bittern

Royal Tern

Hermit Thrush

We got a call from Ashley Furniture that the rest of our furniture was ready for delivery so we made a quick (4 hours in pouring rain) trip home to take care of that.   

Remember the kitchen table that wasn’t?  Well, the table arrived, the 4 legs for the table arrived, somewhere along the way the bolts to put the legs onto the table disappeared.

Enough bolts were found in the truck (probably from someone else’s furniture), and the legs were attached.  Since the bolts weren’t exactly long enough, we will be buying longer bolts as soon as we return home. 

The correct bed frame arrived, the dressers, and the end table were all in the truck.  A little accident occurred when one of the dresser drawers came open as they were bringing it through the front door.  We could hear them whispering about something.  We made sure we thoroughly checked out that dresser.  

Sure enough, one of the drawer pulls was bent.  Mark was able to bend it back, good thing, I’ve pretty much have had it with Ashley Furniture.

They brought the correct bed frame this time.

We spent 3 nights at the house before heading back to the park.  The drive was much easier with nice, sunny weather.

I mentioned last time that it’s oyster season.  We see many oyster boats in Copano Bay.  We’ve always been very interested in this place in Rockport that buys oysters.  The oysters are bagged on the boats and brought directly here where they are shucked and sold by the gallon.

$71 for a gallon of oysters.

Wonder where all those oyster shells go?  Right out the back door! 

A couple of times during the season they usually bring in a front-end loader and haul them away.  We’ve never seen the pile this large before. 

A couple of weeks have gone by since I took this picture and the pile is much larger now!

One of these days, when they don't look busy, I want to stop in and ask questions about the process and see them in action.  

We were asked if we would mind working the front entry one day while the staff was in training.  When we first arrived on November 1st, there was a volunteer hosts whose job was to work the front entry.  About a week later we came back from lunch one day and noticed her RV was gone.  For one reason or another she decided the job wasn’t for her and left the park.  There wasn’t another volunteer host to take her place.

We got about 15 minutes of instructions on what we were to do at the front entry.  Since we weren’t familiar with any part of the front desk operation, we weren’t able to handle money or change or make reservations. We were told we would basically tell people to use the self-pay and hand out maps. It wasn’t exactly that easy.  

A lot of people had questions, wanted to change campsites, didn’t have correct change, wanted to stay additional days, etc.  Luckily, most everyone understood that they were going to have to return the next day when the staff was available.

Stay tuned for our last few weeks here at Goose Island.