Nature on the Texas Coast

The luckiest woman in Flour Bluff, who is also a real Renaissance Man, took a hankering to include photographic images with a craft project she’s cooking up. As you students of art and observers of the human condition have learned, “desire” (hankering) is a powerful force.
Since we hadn’t been out on the scoot for a couple of days I offered to ferry her around to places she figured she’d find subjects.

Our first stop was Packery Channel County Park, so named because a meat packing concern used the channel to ship its product back in the day when that was an important industry on this part of the coast. Even though this area is seeing heavy development, partially because the channel connects the Laguna Madre with the Gulf of Mexico, the park is, pretty much, unspoiled.



The bays and estuaries is where basic elements of the marine food chain get their starts. Combing along the tide line we ran across a lot of hermit crabs living in these shells, called “Sharks Eye”. In the upper right-hand corner you can see one of the critters peeking out.

The seaweed is called, “Sargassum”. Tiny creatures live in it and once it washes up on the beach, sand collects on it and dunes are born. It’s yellow, when it first gets here.



Our next stop was the Padre Balli County Park (Nueces County Park), home of Bob Hall Pier. This part of the island is very popular with families, both local and tourist and, of course, fishermen.



This is the third incarnation of the pier, hurricanes “Carla” and “Beulah” both having done extensive damage to it when they blew through.



About the time we got our helmets off, an admirer of fine motorcyclry approached, complimented my ride, and we commence to blowing smoke about road bikes and wives while Jill wandered off to take pictures.

From Padre Island we rode into town to the Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge. Named for a couple who were environmentalists before environmentalism was cool, the Refuge is considered to be one of the best sea bird watching areas in the world.
The park wasn’t such a hot spot for birds, the time of the year being what it is, but we did manage to spot Brown Pelicans, skimmers and a roseate Spoonbill (sometimes mistaken for pink Flamingos) seining for his supper. A look over the edge of the nature walk revealed fiddler crabs fiddling for food and doing a little people watching from a safe distance.



We wandered through the park and checked out the local flowers.



These Mexican Hats looked like they were stripping off for a little skinny-dipping.



The Jerusalem Thorn was still wearing some of its spring finery.



This park is not only important as a refuge for plants and wildlife. Oso Bay and Oso Creek were home to the Karankawa and other Native people. This land holds the second largest Native American burial ground in Texas. The Gulf Coast Indian Confederation is working toward placing a monument here.

Off-bike Pursuits

About two years ago, the luckiest woman in Flour Bluff told me I'd just have to ignore what the voices were saying and, instead, pack up the big yella bike for a ride to the Davis Mountains, in West Texas.
While there, we visited the McDonald Observatory and made arrangements to attend a night program that included viewing the heavens through powerful telescopes.
Naturally, skies that had been cloudless all week, clouded, relegating the telescopes to the status of interesting gizmos.
On the ride home we camped at Sonora and took the tour of the Caverns of Sonora. We were the only visitors and were given a tour that would have been the envy of most cave groupies. If the cavern was a trade-off for the astronomy tour, we came out ahead.

Near dark, Wednesday, August 12, 2009, the luckiest woman in Flour Bluff suggested we cage out to Padre Island and do a little meteor gazing. It seems that, yearly, the earth passes trough the trail of debris left by the Swift-Tuttle comet and some of that debris burns up in our atmosphere as meteors.

No sooner said than did. We parked our little truck by the Packery Channel, not really out of town, but with an advantageous view towards a non-light-polluted area. As I swung the truck to point the tailgate toward the northeast Jill noticed the most beautiful lightning display from a far-off thunderstorm.
That's right, friends and neighbors, slow-moving clouds were easing in from the north, timed to obscure the rising of the constellation "Perseus", the area of the sky from whence come the meteors. We must have built up some kind of astronomy karma along the way. We do better in caves.

Hours later, rain fell on our parched corner of the world, the air cooled and the wind died, it was nice. Still, I'm a little regretful that we didn't see, possibly, one hundred meteors in an hour; one hundred shooting stars. I was going to wish my ass off.

Special Weather for a Special Place

SPECIAL WEATHER
STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CORPUS CHRISTI TX INCLUDING THE CITIES OF......CORPUS CHRISTI...
...HEAT INDICES BETWEEN 105 AND 109 DEGREES ARE EXPECTED TODAY...

…RESIDENTS WITH OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES PLANNED ARE URGED TO DRINK PLENTY OF WATER...[etc.]

YOUNG CHILDREN AND PETS SHOULD NEVER BE LEFT UNATTENDED IN VEHICLES UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE DURING WARM OR HOT WEATHER WHEN CAR INTERIORS CAN REACH LETHAL TEMPERATURES IN A MATTER OF MINUTES.

First, let me say that I don't believe its possible for something to be "especially true". I believe Truth is a superlative and cannot be more, or less, than what it is. When a former US President's Press Secretary said, “He may have ‘shaved the truth’” (the expression is, "shaded the truth", by the way) everyone except the Party zombies realized this meant the President had lied.

Second, people shouldn't have to be instructed by the National Weather Service not to leave their kids unattended in cars. I realize kids don’t come with service manuals, but this should be a no-brainer.

With those nits picked, let me point out that this “Special” Weather Statement has been issued for the past three weeks.
It’s no longer special.

The temperature on this part of the Gulf Coast is in the low-to-mid-nineties every summer. No, it doesn’t seem hotter this year; you’ve been brainwashed by the Administration’s propaganda team. Some place just recorded it’s first ever July snow, and a glacier in Argentina is growing “despite global warming”, according to the news. Glaciers and snow don’t happen where its warm, which is why my town only sees snow every twenty years or so and, while both the Chupacabra and ghost of Chipita Rodriquez have been reported seen hereabouts, there have been no glacier sightings.

I couldn’t live anywhere else.

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