Homesick

It had been almost two weeks since our resident spider disappeared from the corner of the garage. Today it was back! It looks a lot deflated compared to when I spotted it first in early January, but it continues to work hard building and rebuilding its web each day.

Butterflies are coming back

Butterflies are back by the reservoir. My run was quite joyful with the butterflies fluttering along the path - swallowtails, gulf fritillaris, a monarch, a few small earthy-beige ones, a pretty yellow with black wingtips one. It's beeen very dry lately and the reservoir is at the lowest level I've seen. Hopefully this will not affect the birds coming through in the next few months.

The beach

It was a sunny winter day at the beach today. The beach in High Island is quite unique. Instead of just sand, the beach is covered with mud very rich in fossils. Just walking along the beach for a few minutes I found a fossilized bone - quite neat.

High Island sits on a salt dome. Oil, gas and sulfur exploration and production began in the early 1900's on the flanks of the dome. You can see pump jacks all around the city. Just a reminder that you are indeed in Texas!

In the Spring, however, is when High Island really comes to life. Visitors come in large numbers to witness the migration of millions of birds on their way to northern breeding grounds. I'm looking forward to a bird watching visit in a few weeks.

http://www.birdinghighisland.com/

In Ike's path

Today for the first itme after the storm, we ventured out to the beach. Months later and the signs of Hurricane Ike are still very evident far inland. A drive through Bolivar Peninsula however really showed us the power of the storm. Small communities where houses once stood were only left with stilts in some places, other areas nearby remnants of houses still stand. Amazingly people are rebuilding right along the beach front again... probably the lucky few that have received their insurance settlement. A long battle between isurance companies is underway to assess who pays for what. Was the house that is not longer there damaged by the wind or by flooding waters?

Pelicans and seagulls, where did they go during the storm? They where out in large numbers today along the beach and by the harbor.

Day and Night

D is turning out to be quite an artist too. He loves to scribble and to arrange shapes. Here is one of his projects from school.

High Island - geology and birding

Beach, Ike, salt dome, birds.

Being the teacher

K was playing the teacher yesterday. She sat down with me as her many pretend students and made a list of when we need to wash our hands. I, her 'students', had to come up with items for the list which she was 'writing down', bullet points and all.

Transliteration ----

We wash our hands:

• before we eat


• after we go to the bathroom


• after we eat something sticky


• after we come back from the playground


• after we pet animals


• etc, etc...

I'll have to scan a picture of her hand written list and archive it here.

Here are the scans - and by the way, "we need to write on both sides of the paper. We can't waste paper".

Pavement art

Check out Julian Beever's pavement art. Amazing!

"Anamorphic illusions drawn in a special distortion in order to create an impression of 3 dimensions when seen from one particular viewpoint. "

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

Tracy Lee Stum also has some pretty cool work

http://www.tracyleestum.com/

Pilobolus

Strength!

K and I loved the performance.

http://www.pilobolus.org/

Photo by John Crane

Austin Half

The Austin half marathon sure gave me the run for my money yesterday. I finished it at a similar time to last year. I was hoping for a slightly better time, but I had to reduce my endurance training a lot a few weeks before the race due to an injury. And yes, it definitely made a difference. The first 2/3 of the run felt pretty good, but the last 4 miles or so went 'down hill' pretty fast... I had to take walking breaks at the water stops then on the large uphills... not very upsetting since I knew that might happen. I was just hoping I would've been able to push through it for a bit longer than I did!

The marathon website is down since yesterday afternoon... no official results out there...

I'm rebuilding again!

My spider friend is determined that the corner of the garage and the front yard will hold her 'house'. She has build and rebuild her web countless times the past month. Here are a couple of shots of her on February 03 (getting started) and 04 (proud owner of the newest house in the block).