Routine Week

Except for the Lenten service that we attended at the local Episcopal Church this past week was fairly routine. We did go to Memphis on Saturday to attend a performance by the Memphis Symphony. We went early enough to do some shopping and to visit with Lauri and Jeff. We had a nice visit with them and the performance was good.

We are planning to visit family in Texas the last week in this month. We will also do some sight seeing in Galveston. It has been years (many) since we were in that part of Texas.

Holla Bend

We read in the paper that several pairs of trumpeter swans had been released at Holla Bend Nature Refuge and decided that called for a day trip. We left the house with Mike and Betty a little after 8:30 am and drove to Little Rock. From there we took AR highway 10 west. We drove by Petit Jean state park and on to the refuge.
We ate our picnic lunch standing around the van, then drove slowly along the gravel road keeping all eyes on the look out for eagles and swans.

We counted thirteen armadillo as were drove along. Mike took the camcorder and walked out to one armadillo that was foraging in a field.


We did see one pair of the trumpeter swans, but we were not able to get very close to them. In all we counted twelve or thirteen different birds and animals including an eagle sitting in its nest. Again, the nest was so far away that we would have missed the eagle without binoculars (and zoom lenses on the cameras). We enjoyed our day-trip and counted the day a success.

Six More Weeks

Well, Mr. Groundhog saw his shadow! That means we will have six more weeks of winter weather, or so they say. I've often wondered what the ground hog would think of more winter coming when he sees his shadow. If he sees his shadow that means the sun is shinning on Feb 2nd. If the sun is shinning that means it must be a fairly nice day weather wise. So how does that equate to six more weeks of winter weather.

The weather for the last few days has made me begin to think of spring and planting things. I want to try my hand at growing a few things from seeds. I need to begin looking for the tomato seeds that I saved last year. And then there are several different flowers to try.