A pleasant walk at Bentsen Park

Hello, everyone. The weather today is what the local radio personality calls "Chamber of Commerce weather" which is lovely, partly cloudy, not too windy, and tee-shirt temperature. So we went over to the park for a little walk.

The park had scheduled a birding walk, and we were the only ones there so we walked over to the volunteer "bird guide" and invited ourselves along. He told us about birds, of course, and about the changes in wildlife and plant growth over time. It was very interesting. 

This little hawk was supervising the feeding stations. It doesn't need to be said that the small birds were a bit shy!

The wild turkeys were out and about and not afraid of anything. 

Santo Domingo de Calzadas to Villambistia

Hello, everyone.  This is a second post for today to catch up.

The Cathedral chickens of Santo Domingo, sadly Blogger turns this photo sideways.

We left Santo Domingo at 7, as we have been doing. It's actually a little later than in previous caminos, but the sun is almost up when we leave and the walking is good. We walked along through various little villages and grabbed a bite of breakfast along the way. (Stopped at the first food we found, then later discovered that there was an actual inside bar by the church that we could have eaten at. 😒 But live and learn.) We arrived in Belorado, the "stage end" town in several guides, about 1:00 and found long lines in front of various albergues. Several pensiones were full up as well. 

Pilgrimage art on the Repsol gas station

We struck out for the lovely village of Villambistia and the Hotel Rural Casa de Los Deseos. As this is a small village the hotel offers a menu for supper and also a  small (traditional for Spain) breakfast. We really enjoyed our supper! And since we have "broken the stages" we aren't surrounded by crowds. We don't expect that we will hear people in the next room hooting and hollering after 9 pm either. (In fairness, when the bedtime/lights off time of 10 pm arrived last night, everyone got quiet. And the famous chickens of Santo Domingo are surprisingly good neighbors!)

More color play with the parrot

Hello, everyone.  In between working on the cowboy quilt, I have been working on the parrot wall hanging. This is the photo that turned sideways in the last post. (Bad Blogger!) I'm thinking about the binding now.

And this time it's right side up.

Both the purple batik and the assorted oranges speak to me. There is some question whether there is enough of the oranges. I estimate needing 10 feet plus miters for the length of this binding. 

I do think that a little flange of orange would look nice with the purple batik binding. The orange in the eye, the gold in the wattle, and the golden spirals in the wing would play with it, and the varied shades in the batik would work with the perch and the greens.

New project, and color play

Hello,  everyone.  I went to a class at a quilt shop down the highway a ways (RGV Quilt and Sew) and have gotten the face of the class project put together.  But, before putting parts together,  we all took turns working out a fabric palette, different for each student, and did practice layouts of our chosen prints. 

This was mine. Of the pieces here, two were already in my collection.  (The yellow and purple grunge fat quarters) The greens, the Kaffe Fassett fungus, and the brown speckles were pulled from the shop shelves. Likewise the peach-colored marbled print which will be the background. 

Here is the assembled face of the wall hanging:

Sadly, the Blogger app turns this photo on it's side. The parrot is having a little  nap, I guess.

 I have the fabric clipped onto the cabinets in my sewing room, using some photographer's clips, because that's what I have for a try-out wall. And the old chip clips just didn't grip the melamine doors like these ones do.

I do like the way the cabinet doors hold up the pieced fabric. As long as the quilt is not bigger than a short twin-sized, this system works fine.

Back on track with walking

Hello, everyone.  We're having pleasant weather this week, and we're getting back on track with walking. 

Yesterday we returned to one of our favorite training walks, the Mission Hike and Bike. This trail has a paved track with gentle inclines along the way. We walked 3 miles there yesterday and it was purely relaxing.

We also saw a little bit of wildlife. There was a first-time sight:

He or she had crawled out of the burrow, probably because the cloudy sky looked like evening to a "little " fuzzy spider.

There were also some roadrunners.

Today we walked at Bentsen State Park. We had a good pace and the 4 miles were so peaceful. 

Cold weather has arrived

Hello, everyone. It's really chilly out today, it was yesterday,  and it's supposed to be tomorrow, too. We call it "winter", no fancy names needed. It's warmer than a lot of places farther north, but it is in the 40'sF. 

I had some tallow in the house, left over from making chili, and I melted it and poured it over some birdseed. 

When it firms up it can be broken into chunks for the poor little birds outside. 

A little bit more about Merida, and leaving the city

 Hello, everyone.

Earlier posts about the day of the very long walk talked about the church in Aljucen, and a bit about the monks in Alcuescar.

The very beginning of the day was very different from both of those subjects, and we enjoyed the things we saw and learned.

At right, a detail of the aqueduct at Merida. The storks have nests atop the stone construction.

At left, a photo of more of it. The sun was just coming up.

The information sign about the over-2,000-year-old dam. This dam was built to supply, via the aqueduct pictured above, the city of Augusta Merita. Which is now called Merida. The dam still holds water, but the aqueduct is a ruin, so the water doesn't go to the municipal water system anymore.

A view of the waters of the Embalse de Proserpina. There are pretty walking trails along the edge, some of them being sorta-kinda beach accesses. For beaches that are just the native soil of the area, not the sort of artificial sand piles that St. Thomas, USVI, has.

About mid-morning, we passed through El Carrascalejo. The village's community-center bar was just opening, so we stopped and had a bit of rest and cafe con leche.

We did notice that the village seems to be trying to have an albergue for pilgrims to shelter in. If someone had spent the night in Torremejia, and didn't decide to stay at Merida (I don't know why, but some people aren't interested in the historical aspects of the Camino) they might find that El Carrascalejo falls just at the time of day they would like to stop for the night. Though I'm not sure what food availability the village has. Probably someone thinking of that would want to find out, in case they need to pack a picnic dinner from the grocery store in Merida.

If they did stop at El Carrascalejo like that, they would find that the next day, while long, would probably be less than 30 kilometers of walking. They could breakfast at Aljucen and be fresh when walking the Via Pecuaria through the long dimension of the nature area.  

Zafra, and then on to Villafranca de Los Barros

Hello, everyone. 

Yesterday we were tired and went to bed without making a post. We had walked to Zafra, and walked around looking at things, and after supper we just crawled into bed.

One of the beautiful chapel Altar pieces in Nuestra Sonora de la Candelaria in Zafra.

We stayed at the albergue in the former Franciscan convent. The hospitalera was very friendly and helpful with directions to things in the city.

Today we left the albergue at about 7 in the morning and headed on down the road through Los Santos de Maimona, passed about a half million of grape vines, olive trees, and almond trees, and arrived at Villafranca dexlos Barrose around 1:30 pm. En route we both saw a hoopoe sitting on a fence;as soon as he saw me reaching for my camera he took off.

Tapita we were served along with our manzanilla (chamomile tea) and soda.The pork sausage bits were very tasty! 

Happy birdies

Hello, everyone. 

We lucked into some stale bread about a week ago, and have been doling the crumbs out to the birdies. 

Here we see several white winged doves and some mourning doves and a couple of house sparrows, all eating bread crumbs that fell from the bird feeder. It turns out that doves are more likely to come for bread than for songbird mix from the store.

Due to the recent rains and the weather getting warm, we also have a lot of flowers blooming. 

The top 2 are cannas. Then there is a daylily that was broughtover from the old house. The bottomones are new to me. They are open in the morning only.

Estero Llano Grande Stare Park

Hello, everyone. Recently we drove a few miles over to the city of Weslaco and did our training walk at Estero Llano Grande.

Estero is very pleasant to walk in, with a gift shop/pay admission place and restrooms near the parking. It seems to have been created out of old farm fields that were converted to large water features to attract birds for viewing. And there are so many to see!

There is a pond that is reputed to have an alligator in residence, but none were visible there that day. We walked every bit of trail, going up to and down from the levee several times, and on our way out we encountered a friendly couple with large telescopes on tripods (likely serious bird watchers), who pointed out a young gator sunning on a log in the pond they were observing. 

He's such a young one! 

We looked at DH's Strava at the end and discovered that we had walked 6.62 miles--more than 10 km. 

That is more than the distance to be walked if one goes from Seville to the Roman ruins of Italica in Santiponce. ;-) Not including any wandering in the ruins, of course!

Seen while walking

Hello, everyone. 

Among the native birds to this area is the Whistling Tree Duck. There is also a black one, which has black patches, I think on the wings.

They're called Whistling Ducks because instead of quacking like mallards, they make a sort of squeaky, whistling sound when they fly.

They're fairly comfortable living near people,  too.

as witness this flock we saw while out on a training walk. 

Turkeys strutting their stuff

Hello, everyone. A few days ago we went back to Bentsen State Park and were walking during the bird feeding time.

(They're still filling the bird feeders now.)

Aren't they gorgeous? 

The bird blind by the resaca was full of birds. I thought they were the teen-ager male turkeys. 

I know people often use "turkey" as a synonym for fool, but these wild birds have obviously figured out that the park is a safe place for them.

Training for our next Camino walk

Hello, everyone. Yes, we're getting ready to walk again. We are now officially training: defined as the last 3 days we have walked about 2-ish miles each day. (3 km about) Today we went down to the Hike and Bike and did the 5K loop. (3.1 miles) between the blooming mesquite trees. The trail was very busy today! And amongst the many walkers, bikers, and runners, the natural wildlife just keeps on keeping on.

The javelina trotted across the trail about 20 feet ahead of that group of walkers. The roadrunner, one of 2 or 3 we saw, crossed ahead of us and started pecking at things in the scrub.

Learning new tricks

Hello, everyone. After figuring out how to use the easy parts of the Blogger app the other day, I got brave.

I have figured out how to add words to a picture! 

Here is the first one:



This is a photo of one of the new bushes we added to the yard. It is a native pepper plant in our area. For me, the best thing about it is the numbers of birds, especially mockingbird, that it attracts.

More birds, different place

 Hello, everyone.

Last week DH and I went over to Bentsen Park for a refreshing stroll. (3 or 4 miles. Why, yes, we want to return to the Camino paths!) We wanted to see birds, but as we entered the park we saw hawks flying overhead. "Oh, well, guess all the birds will be hiding today."

We were walking down to the bird blind, the one with  seating, and saw the resident wild turkeys. On the road! 

This was a zoomed shot when they were far off.

Here they were walking past us.

When we got to the blind, we learned that the local birds weren't totally hiding under cover after all.

One of our local specialties, the chachalacas, sipping from the pool at the blind. They also like to hop up and take peanut butter from the stick feeder--which is much smaller than a chachalaca! 

Another local specialty, the Alta Mira Oriole, who is usually very shy about being photographed, even from inside of the blind. This day he was brave and posed next to the water and I was able to capture a reflection portrait of his glorious plumage.

The Alta Mira Orioles are sometimes seen on the blooms of the large agaves. 

A quick post about birds

 Hello, everyone.

A few days ago, I had reason to be out and about, and remembered to bring my phone. Rounding the second to last turn on my route, I was delighted to see a local specialty: green parrots.

The first look when I walked from the parking lot back towards them.

I heard enthusiastic squawking, waited a moment, and got this:

A couple of minutes later and they all got up and moved elsewhere.

These birds are native to the general area, though they used to live farther south. Sadly, the habitat in the neighboring nation has been steadily destroyed, so they've moved across the river.

Camino training is starting

 Hello, everyone. We are resuming our walks in hope of walking the Camino once again. We were not able to walk the Via de la Plata in 2020, as had been planned. Perhaps it will happen this time.

We have found a new series of YouTube videos, by an Australian fellow with the screen name GreenEnergyGavindelaplata. It's interesting. He, like us, is interested in how the local folks live. He learned a lot about cork culture (this is a crop, the bark of the cork oak tree) and shared it in his first video.

Today, though, we were just practice walking. We went to Bentsen State Park and saw the Green Jays, the doves, the Chachalcas, the orioles, and even the local flock of wild turkeys.

Mister Cardinal at the feeder

Mrs. Cardinal thinking about the feeder

Orioles and Chachalacas considering the feeder. (The Chachalacas did eat some peanut butter mix.) The orioles didn't seem to know what to make of the feeder. Theywould fly over to look at it and not eat. Perhaps they thought the yellow-orange peanut butter mix was cut up fruit.

A Green Jay eating peanut butter mix. Almost all of the birds love the peanut butter mix the park feeds them in the winter season.

Visitors in the yard

Hello,everyone.

The hot summer weather has not stopped various creatures from making their rounds. The squirrel feeder has been getting attention regularly. The garden, which has been cleared out for a few weeks, got an unexpected visitor recently: a roadrunner. He apparently was just checking things out, and briefly forgot that to fly out he needed to step back from the fence.

An unusual duck at the park

Hello, everyone.

When we visited the park to feed ducks, we saw a duck that had a different facial pattern from Muscovy ducks we've seen in the past.

This guy has a different pattern of the red decorations on his head. There were others like this one as well. Are there color varieties among Muscovy ducks, like there are among the more standard ducks?

Feeding the ducks at the park

Hello, everyone. It has been a busy week for us, with DGS in house for Granny camp.

one of the fun activities was duck feeding at the local park. There is a mix of domestic white ducks, some that look like a variety of Muscovy ducks with the red marks on their heads, some domestic geese, and some wild Whistling Tree Ducks which are native to Texas.

The ducks are observant and they come running for the chunks of food. The first time, DGS was a little nervous around them. The second time he did fine.