The Wooly Moth

Update on August 22: Here's what I found on wiki: The moth Megalopyge opercularis has numerous common names, including southern flannel moth, pussy moth, puss caterpillar, tree asp, and, asp caterpillar.



What is this creature?? Anybody out there know? I am so intrigued by it. Mark noticed it hanging on our front door and when we looked closer, we saw how unique he is. I mean, look at all that fuzziness! And the color is so cool. I'm totally fascinated. And we check when we go by and it is still hanging there on the door. Weird but neat.

I'm home from Dallas! Yay! This was my one day trip. Flew up early, had meetings, flew home. :-) Happy to be home.

Workshop Project

Here's a shot of the space Mark's been working on in preparation for his workshop, which is being delivered by Tuff Shed on Friday. Hopefully. I can't wait for it to get here already!

Home Depot & Another Project at Home

I noted today to friends that this was a seesaw week, filled with highs and lows. I guess, however, that's just how life is and all you can do is try and focus on the highs so you can get through the low spells. I'm very blessed because it seemed when I was feeling particularly down (e.g., wanted to throw something Monday, had an urge to shake some sense into someone Tuesday, etc.), it was soon balanced out by a laugh, a hug, a reminder of good things or a story of someone else's troubles, which then made mine seem very trivial. Anyway, all of this gave me little inspiration or motivation to write. I like to keep this positive as much as possible. We have enough downers in the world. So, on to something lighter. Sorry about that.



We have a new home improvement project! Well, we usually have something going on but this is a big one. Mark has torn down the OLD shed out back and is going to put a new and bigger workshop where he can set up all his tools as well as his beekeeping equipment. We are super excited! Above is a shot of some of the lumber at Home Depot in town. It's so nice to have them here. I went with Mark to get out and away from the computer for a bit.



While he was busy working with a nice gentleman, I was playing with my phone, taking pictures and so on. Then I saw this CUTE display! I used to LOVE watching the Pink Panther cartoon when I was young and I still love the theme music. There was no question I was going to take a picture of the display. :) Below is a shot of some of the posts Mark's been working deligently on before we get the workshop in....I'll share a bigger view later. I just liked the way some of the posts shots came out.

I hope you all have a very wonderful and relaxing weekend. Thank you for stopping by the blog and sorry I am sporadic in posts lately. I hope that I will return to more regular posts soon. Goodnight. :)

Sky Watch Friday

The moon is so lovely that it makes me forget all my troubles, stresses, chores, work...just about everything. Mark called me out to see it and I'm glad I did. I imagine a day in my lifetime when we can just hope on a shuttle and visit the moon. Not as astronauts but simply as citizens of Earth. Wouldn't that be cool? I don't want to stay there nor do I necessarily need to touch down and disturb it (though if I'm up there, you never know). Just to get closer to it, to see the craters up closer -- wow! I think that would be awesome.

Check out other skies this week at Sky Watch Friday.

The Ticket

We have a new bar down on the town square now and it's called The Ticket. The top picture is the front part of the bar, the bottom shot a look at the rear of the bar. It is nice to see something new on the square but I wish it was still The Grill. Remember that? It was a great restaurant! Great atmosphere, great food, awesome wait staff -- my stepson used to work there. :) Anyway, that's more my speed than The Ticket but if you want to try something new, be sure to let me know what you think of the place.

Mark and I went when they first opened so they didn't have a full menu yet. We had the nachos and a couple of beer. I'm no critic so I won't offer a review here since you should be allowed to form your own opinion. It does offer a sitting area/balcony on the second floor, which is a great spot to be in if there's a music event on the square.

Sunday Evening Thoughts

Since some of you liked yesterday's shot, I thought I might share a follow up of the flower. The top shot is the lotus in full bloom. I am intrigued by it and love looking at the bloom -- look at all that's going on inside the bloom! It's multi-layered inside amazes me. Each part like it's own flower really. I just think it's neat.

Below is my favorite shot for many reasons. I love pink and green together because it always reminds me of one of my favorite memories from childhood. It was when my dad colored with us kids once. I remember he used this green and pink combination and at the time, I had never seen that put together in such a way that it just really drew my attention. I don't know why that stayed with me but it does. More than likely, I just really liked that he colored with us and then he showed his creative side, which we rarely got to see. I'm all mushy for a Sunday night. I should call them tomorrow. :)

Hope everyone has a great week. No Dallas for me this week so I am very psyched about it! :) Nothing like being home.

Saturday Fun

Happy Saturday everyone! If you have some time today and want to have some fun, come by Second Baptist Church between 9am and 12pm. We're at 609 S. Guadalupe (1/2 way between the Coliseum and the Court St. intersection). Mark and I will be there along with other church members at our first annual SBC Bazaar & BBQ.

It was a busy week as we cooked beans (Mark), brownies and lemon squares (me). Plus I am donating eight pairs of earrings I made to our rummage sale. There will be lots of things for the kids to do so hope you can make it. By the way, I am in charge of the bake sale and I understand there's going to be cakes, cupcakes and cookies on top of my two items. Come on you sweet tooth...you know you want to swing by SBC. :)

This is a lotus bloom, very symbolic in Asian culture and especially if you are Buddhist. I don't have time to go into detail. I just wanted to share its beauty with you and wish you all a wonderful weekend with family, friends or on your own if you are just chillaxing solo (that's what the kids say these days, lol). Take care.

Baby mocks are back!

They're back! The mockingbirds are back this year and nesting in the crepe myrtle in the front yard. I love it when I hear them making noise for food. Let me back up a bit. First, I really enjoy the nest building activity. It's so amazing to me that little bits and pieces of wood are weaved together somehow into a nest that is sturdy enough to hold three babes and the mom. The nest is up high so I couldn't see how the eggs were doing. I was happy when I finally heard the babies making sounds.



Yesterday I got all excited and a little worried. Why? Because I saw one of the babies in the rosemary bush underneath their nest. So I was all happy because I knew it was a chance to see a baby. BUT I did not want Smokey finding it down there. Yikes. I saw evidence of another grown mockingbird done in out back so I worried for the little birdy in the bush. I don't know if it survived or not but I didn't see a little body around the yard so that's a good sign. And below is a picture of the momma bird watching me as I hovered near her little one. She didn't swoop down on me or anything. Nice.

Bees & Spiders

Here is a shot of us out at the country beeyard. My sister-in-law and nephew are checking out one of the two big spiders "guarding" our bees. It's a little difficult to see but you can spot the spider if you look at the yellow part of Renee's veil. it almost looks like the spider is on her veil since you all cannot see the spider web.

Spider, Man!

Last weekend we took some family members out to see the bees in the country (near the New Berlin exit). We had a blast and the kids such a great job - they were so brave and really were not nervous after a little bit. Everyone got to sample a bit of honey and our nephew announced, "That's so sweet!" Very nice and cute.

Mark spotted two amazing spiders, each on one end of the beeyard. They are HUGE!!! I'm not brave about all animals but spiders don't bother me too much so I was okay getting close to them to get some shots. They look very similar and were pretty mesmerizing. Didn't see any bee bodies in the webs so that's a good thing. :)

Rainbow Prettiness

Two weeks ago, we got about an inch of wonderful rain. Then, last week we got another inch and a half! Gosh, it was so refreshing to hear and see the storms. Lightening, thunder, rain, wind. Nice. I wish we could see more of it. The news folks just said we have had 22 days of 100+ days this year now, with more in the forecast. Hot is one thing. It's Texas. It's hot. But the drought is really terrible. The fields continue to look pretty bad and I often wonder how the poor farming folks are going to make it.

One evening after dinner, Mark called me out to the back deck to see something and this is what I saw. It was nice that he hollered bring the camera also. :) He knows a good shot when he sees one. Do you see the lighter rainbow above the main one? Double rainbow...very nice and not often seen. I did darken this shot so that I could see the rainbows better. Below is the original shot I snapped.

Happy 4th of July!

Another blazing hot day in South Texas -- I heard it was 103F today. Good grief! I hope everyone's had a nice weekend so far. I have really enjoyed the long weekend, very relaxing. There's a lot going on around town since Freedom Fiesta is in full swing. We noticed the carnival in down on the square this year; it was neat to see the rides down there in the middle of everything. The parade was this morning but we skipped it for the Transformers instead. We've been to and worked plenty of parades so the escape was fun. Very good movie if you like action.

Oh, I hear the fireworks now. :) Going to check out a few of them...we can see a bit of it from our street. Enjoy Sunday!

R-A-I-N

If you are not located here in South Texas, you might not understand why I am posting about rain. It's been very, very hot here lately. Tonight, the weather man said that we broke our 1990 record of triple digit heat! And it's expected to continue for another 2 days or so. I believe we're at 11 or 12 days straight. Everything is brown and dry. The dust is pretty heavy and we are wilting away here! BUT....

We had a huge thunderstorm this evening during dinner time! It was wonderful to see the water coming down from the sky. I think it rained for about twenty minutes or maybe thirty even. And there was huge cracks of thunder and a bit of lightning along with a snappy wind to blow the trees and rain sideways a bit. Very exciting to watch. So we watched after dinner. And I tried to snap some pictures without getting my camera wet. This is our sidewalk out front. I liked the way the water makes it looks gelatinous.

Blooming in the Heat

I don't know how anything can bloom in this insane heat, but I am happy to see this cotton field, which can be found next to the Home Depot along IH-10 near Austin Street exit. We drove by last week to check on the field because it is within the 3-mile radius the bees fly so we were looking to see if any bees were there. Sure enough, we are happy to report there were bees. Now, we can only hope they are our bees from the backyard. :)



This is the best looking cotton field around the area, as you can tell by the healthy looking leaves and blooms. There are many other cotton fields in this area but they are looking pretty pitiful due to the drought we are in still. It is so hot and dry out here, it's amazing. We've had many three digit heat days and there's been so little rain to provide relief. It's all so dry, so brown, so crunchy. The heat is so oppressive, you simply don't want to go outside even.

Hospital Revisited

Remember a couple of weeks ago when Mark took me to the Guadalupe Regional Medical Center for my bee sting? Well I returned the favor. :) This past week has been pretty exciting and exhausting and I don't really want to focus on what happened though I will say that Mark is at home now and recuperating just fine. Thank you for everyone's well wishes and prayers; we really appreciate it!

Here he is, getting a heart ultrasound while at the hospital. That was really cool to see his heart in action (it's fine, by the way)! Everytime you see red flashes, the technician told us it was blood being pumped into his heart. Cool. And yes, I asked Mark if he'd mind if I took pictures. :) And believe it or not, this was the only time I took pictures during the week's main event. I was a bit distracted, lol.

This is what I really want to say about the hospital here in Seguin: it is GREAT! Well, it's really the people working there. You know, you hear about ER and hospitals and usually it's not so positive. But given that we were stressed and scared, it was the best place and the greatest help we could have asked for in our opinion. The staff was amazing and simply wonderful. Everyone from the ER to the nursing staff that cared for Mark AND me while we were there. I really felt like they created a safe place for us while we dealt with all the tests and uncertainty.

So here's a great big THANK YOU to the Guadalupe Regional Medical Center. You all are wonderful and we really appreicate you and all you did for us!

Happy Father's Day

I hope everyone is enjoying this special day and that you are also surviving the heat. :) We were very happy to have Melissa join us for church this morning and then we took Mark to lunch. It's been a wonderful day and now I'm off to call my dad.

Wesley Harper United Methodist Church

Last night Mark presented another talk on his book during the Juneteenth celebration at Wesley Harper United Methodist on Court Street. We had a very nice crowd join us and I never tire of listening to and watching Mark talk about his research. What is really nice is that everyone has really been wonderfully accepting and very interested in the book. Sometimes people ask if we have encountered any negative reactions since this IS about slavery. The answer is, we have not. It doesn't seem to matter the skin color of the reader, they just want to know about their/our history. And Seguin's history. It has been a truly wonderful to experience this whole adventure with Mark.



We also had musical performers for the evening: The Lampkin Family Gospel Group. Talk about beautiful. We first heard them during a musical program at Second Baptist Church a few years ago and we loved them! I was sooooo excited when I saw that they were on the program along with Mark as well as a young artist from Seguin, Howard Crunk (Howard displayed several beautiful pieces of his paintings and wood sculptures). If you have not heard of the Lampkins and you enjoy gospel music, then you should definitely check them out. They have two CDs out (available at Hastings) and they also brought home an award from the 2009 San Antonio Gospel Music Awards! The Seguin paper did a story back in May on the family, which you can read here. If you'd like to hear some of their music, search for their MySpace page and check out "God is Good." I love that one. :)

Sky Light Watch

...and a trip to the Guadalupe Regional Medical Center. So I thought this would fit with the theme since it IS a shot of a sky. :)

Last weekend Mark took me to the emergency room because my bee sting had gotten worse by Sunday morning. You know, this lovely sky shot really brightened the ER and it made me feel better because it is so cheerful and healthy looking. I thought it was a very nice touch to add to the ceiling. That's right; it's on the ceiling! It also made the space feel bigger. As a matter of fact, our little hospital is going through some rather extensive construction and so far, everything is looking super! I can't wait to see what the hospital will look like. There is a lot of glass in the design so I'm sure it will be very modern.



Here I am sitting and waiting for the PA to fix me. I am only smiling because of two things:

1. That HUGE contraption behind me. Really, I felt like it was this creature that was going to zap me or something. It loomed there...ever present. They didn't use it on me; I guess that is good. I just had to have a picture of it.
2. After I got my steroid shot, there was not much to smile about, that's for sure. I have gotten those shots before and I do not recall it being painful! It was not the needle going in or coming out. It was about one minute AFTER I got the injection that I felt the stabbing pain where I received my medication. Wow. Don't get me wrong. I appreciated the relief. But still!

So, about the bee sting. This is my second sting and I'm not sure why I reacted so differently since the first sting was no big deal. My hand swelled and itched like crazy. It was at least twice the size of my left hand and it looked WEIRD. All poofy. Also, I had to have antibiotics because it looked like it might have been getting infected. The Benadryl did NOT help the itching nor did it knock me out so I could sleep. I learned a good lesson: gear up from now on to check on the bees! :)

Local Author Book Signing

:) It's Mark! Last Thursday Mark had his first official book signing and I made it in time to catch the last few minutes of his talk and then I worked the purchasing table. The books are moving pretty swiftly and the publisher even spoke with Mark about buying some back...interesting! I am so happy for Mark because he enjoys talking with folks about the book. Saturday we went to drop copies off at Hastings, a local book/music/movie store, and while he was waiting to do paperwork, I strolled around looking at the books. Next thing you know, a "fan" was chatting him up and he signed her book for her. Sweet. I loved it.

Garden Update

I haven't talked about our garden so I wanted to give an update. It was late but we're beginning to really enjoy some harvested veggies lately. Above, Mark put hay around the garden and that has helped them plants retain some moisture these days. We are ranging from 98F to 101F degrees. Ugh. HOT! Below is a shot I really like of the green beans. I love the dainty white flowers but it's always hard for me to get a great shot of them. I'm glad I got this one, which includes a new green bean coming along as well.



Here's one of our yellow squash plants, doing pretty well! I love to saute these when we have pork chops, baked chicken or fish. They have a wonderful flavor I don't taste when we get them from the grocery store.



Here are some other veggies we have this week. Tastes wonderful! The zuchinni was served with some baked basa catfish and rice. Going to put the bell pepper in a stew we're going to do in a few days. The tomatoes went on top of some nachos we made for dinner. We have more green beans to pick so we can have that with more baked chicken. :)