November 25 2014 9 pm cst  50 degrees

This young broad wing hawk is being released into the wild to hopefully find his way to his winter home in South America. The man releasing him is Dr. deMaar, veterinarian for the Gladys Porter Zoo.

  Two broad wing hawks were rehabilitated  in St.Louis where they were found with broken wing bones last August.  Now they are healed and able to feed themselves and hopefully ready to continue their migration   

They were sent to the Gladys Porter Zoo here in Harlingen to be released because they have already missed the migration and it is thought that starting from here would give them a better chance of success.

Here is the second one..a bit smaller and looking kinda startled.

-And speaking of birds.......

This is the Eagle Dance being performed by 2 members of the Sahawe Dancers, a group of Boy and Girl Scouts  who perform some pretty impressive dances that they have learned by studying

their Indian Heritage.

This young man did a ring dance and it was amazing what he could do with those hoops.  They are not hooked together and he would lay them on the floor, dance a little,  and then pick them up in a different formation. 

Those hoops are not hooked together.

These kids and their leaders make their costumes also. No, really, there are kids in front of all those feathers.  Look carefully.  By the way, that back piece is called a bustle.

In 1976 the then members of this group were asked to perform for a Bicentenial Celebration so they used what they knew as a ribbon dance and replaced the ribbons with flags.  

I hate it when people go up front to take a picture and then just stand there spoiling everyone else's opportunity for a good shot.  

 Sit down, Lady!

Cowboy and Indian

Did I mention that this was the second annual San Benito Pow Wow.

I loved this bell dress.

Closeup of the dress. ..there must be 200 bells and when she walked it made the nicest soft sound.... sort of like a breeze on a lot of small wind chimes

If you got Indians and Cowboys, you gotta have the Calvary too, I guess.  That dress is deer hide and beautifully made. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

November 17 2014  8:30 pm cst 58 degrees

A collection of bedpans .......hows that for an opening eye catcher?
I went to the Harlingen Arts and Heritage museum this week but my timing was a little off as there were two big nearly-empty rooms being readied for their Christmas stuff.  Beginning Dec 11, those rooms will be filled with all sorts of Christmas trees decorated in themes.

This one is so cute I can't wait to see when the rooms are filled with decorated trees.

 Anyone....family, organizations, individuals, groups, etc can sign up to donate a tree and decorate it.

Sooo, I wandered around a bit outside where they have a few historic buildings.

This one is the original house of Lon C Hill ...town founder.  I didn't bother going inside but I did take notice that he named the town after his friend whose ancestral home was in Harlingen Holland.  Good thing because the town had previously been known by such distinguished names as Rattlesnake Junction and 6-shooter Junction.

I went into the hospital where this display gave me pause.  Those are awfully little shoes.

This test for color blindness was invented by a Dr. Thompson and was given to railway and  shipping employees.   The person being tested was asked to choose a match for a red  yarn  and if he chose purple or blue he was deemed red blind.  If he choose green or grey he was deemed green blind,
This was one of the first attempts to standardize color blind testing.

Apparently  the hospital was concerned about energy as you can see the energy-saving light bulb. 

 I didn't know they had them in 1927. (That was irony..  .I apologize.)

Maternity room.  Please, museum people, take that beautiful wedding ring quilt made in the early 1930s out of that bright sunny window! The colors are already very faded.

Well, now I had to just go talk to the lady at the desk.  

This sign says that this is the hide of an animal native to the King Ranch here in Texas.  It's a Nilgai , a member of the antelope family. 

 The King Ranch  released them on their land about 1930 so  probably the King Ranch was the first to offer them for hunting, but they are native to Asia.  The original population has exploded..I have read that there are  now 30,000 and in another place I read that there are 50,000 estimated population  in this area today.  Well, I don't know which is more correct, but there are a lot of them, I guess.

By the way, if you are interested in hunting Nilgai at the King Ranch today, the 2 day/2 night hunting package for a nilgai bull is $3000.00 per person.

So I asked Christian..or is it spelled Kristian....and we did some Googling but we got to talking about the Christmas tree opening day on  Dec 11 where they are having free food and wine.  Wine got my attention and we talked about other stuff and I still don't know why they offer nilgai as native animals.

It's been cold here in the valley as it has about everywhere, I guess.  These people are venders at the flea market.

Is this deep sea fishing?  I like that he still has his hat on when he is up to his neck in surf.

Silk floss tree..it has thorns all over the bark.  It also has beautiful big pink flowers in September and October, but they are too high to see  on this one.

This picture was displayed with several other serious religious pictures.  It is a joke, isn't it?

Veterans Day, Nov 11, 2014   11:30 pm cst and a chilly 58 degrees.

Neil has been wanting to go to this museum for a long time and whenever we went , we found it was closed.  We have been calling it the Freddy Fender museum even tho the sign clearly states that it is about historic San Benito.  I gotta tell you that I was lukewarm about the whole thing but I found it most interesting once we finally got to go in.

 Freddy Fender, born Baldemar Huerta, was a nationally known  Grammy winning
Texas born country music star of the 70's 80's and 90's.  He  quit school when he was 16, joined the military but was discharged (dishonorable?) for alcohoism, played music all over the south and spent over 2 years in prison for having Marijuana cigs in his pocket at a gig where was playing in Louisiana

After prison he came back to San Benito, his hometown where he recorded for The Rio Grande Music Co. which later became Ideal Records.  This was a local operation so he not only recorded, he helped press the records....

 and he even was seen from time to time opening up in the mornings and sweeping the sidewalk.
This pic is the equipment they used.
.
It was just about in this part of the museum that my camera died. but  Mr Rey Avila, our guide

continued  telling me about the rest of the museum and the  interesting beginnings of conjunto music.   Never heard  of it?   Go here:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-j0ETieSAs

and tell me if this music doesn't  make you tap your toes a little.

Conjunto or Tex Mex music was born here in San Benito by a accordion player by the name of Marcisco Martinez who didn't like to use the left side of the accordion so he played the melody and a bajo sexto, a Mexican 12 string guitar,  played the rhythm.  Conjunto music always has these two instruments.  The music's origins are in the polkas and waltzes  from up north where the German and Czech influences were strong.

Apropos of nothing, I just want to throw in this little bit of information that I learned the other day:, Tejas is not Mexican for Texas.  The name Texas comes from the Hasini word tejas, meaning friends.

So the dead camera requires that I either give up the blog or get a new camera, right?

Here is my best picture from the first day of shooting with my new Canon T3i.

 He is a cool little spider called a spiny orb spider.  He's good for the garden and he doesn't like to come into the house.  I like that  the markings sort of look like a scary face.  Maybe it is for his protection because he is a very little spider and maybe the scary face will ward off some predators..

Did you thank a veteran today.....Veterans day.... for helping to protect our sorry butts?  It's not too late you know.
These guys were at the Veterans Day ceremonies at the Marine museum in Harlingen

November 5 2014  71 degrees

Butterflies are rampant at Santa Ana  Wildlife Refuge this week.  Gazillions of them would fly up as we approached on the tram, but  Mary, the tram lady wouldn't stop for photos and as much as I  tried I couldn't command  the butterflies to hold still...not even for a second while I focused.  Hateful insects!
I hope I labeled then right.

Caracara (top) Kingfisher (middle) and Roadrunner (bottom) were a little more cooperative  but this guy

didn't stick around and I was just as happy to see him go.  It is the first rattlesnake I have seen down here.  He was about 5  to 5.5 feet long and had a suspicious bulge midlength which I suspect was a lunch of rabbit.

Also met a young man from Mission taking these Santa Gertrudis bulls  to be trained.  He trains them to trailer and halter so they will be easier to manage when he sells them.  This is the breed of cattle developed on the King ranch here in Texas somewhere around 1940.  They are a cross of Brahman bulls and Beef Shorthorn cows that not only show good weight for their age but can withstand harsh climates. These large babies are only 8 months old.

 This is Samuel Stanton's car. He goes to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream on some Sunday afternoons and incredibly, this is the third year that we have seen him there.  He made this trailer that opens from both front and back from parts. Cutest thing.  Thats Neil and George looking it over.  

This man is taking a nap during his lunch hour at a construction site. Hurts my bones just to see it.

Neil likes this arrangement at the flea market.  The owner got twice as much merchandise displayed by using the roof of the stall as well as the ground level but its kinda hard to shop the roof I would think.

They say there are no mistakes in nature and it doesn't seem right for a cactus to be growing near the top of a tree but there it is.

Twink's Halloween costume.  He was a Tiger cat.