Pretty little bug

Hello, everyone. Today we found an odd little moth in the palapa. He looked dead, frankly, but still pretty.

A new bowl filler

Hello, everyone. Ye Olde House has been busy with guests. Today there is finally a moment to photograph the latest little something. It's a bowl filler/fidget, palm-sized, with bead decorations on the top.

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.

test post from phone with photo

Hello, everyone.  This is a test post using the phone instead of the tablet. 

This is our 40+ years old Golden Barrel cactus. It was in process to be planted in the ground.

Test post from tablet

 Hello, everyone. 

This is to test if a blog post can be made from my old tablet. Since the new phone can't seem to. 

This is a spring apron from the charm pack apron pattern, and a cheerful bright charm pack. It will be a gift.

New shoes for the Camino!

 Hello, everyone. We went to our local Fleet Feet store for their anniversary party and found our new trail runners for hiking the Camino.

These are Speedgoat 5 by Hoka. For a wonder, they aren't nearly the same exact color as my first two pairs were...don't know why, but that turquoise blue shad was the only thing available when we were shopping those years. This time it's more of a powder blue. The green second color is pretty dominant when you see them in person. The shape of the top of the tongue is different, it has a kind of dip just where your foot bends forward with the steps, and it's thinner.

As y'all can tell, we're looking forward to our next Camino walk: the Via de la Plata. (This was supposed to happen in 2020, but like a lot of things that spring, the trip fell.) This starts in Seville and goes either to Astorga to join the Frances or to the trail head of the Sanabres which goes through Ourense and joins with the Invierno (Winter) route of the Frances. We're planning to take the Sanabres option.

(On the blog maintenance front, the phone is still acting up on posts. I tried emailing Blogger and got an auto-reply from Google that "this email is no longer monitored" or some such. This though they're still peddling the Blogger app for downloads and giving that as the contact email. What is wrong with these people? And why did they break my app?)

 

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.