Thursday, May 14, 2020

An Unexpected Visitor…

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The park being closed this long to the public has made it revert back to its more natural look. No mowing has happened in the park for about 6 weeks and as a result the deer are much more visible all over the park. Most every morning I enjoy seeing some foraging between our RV and the lake. I call them my coffee buddies!

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Every so often we have to fire up the engine of our RV and make the short drive over to the dump station since there is no sewage at our site. It’s nice to start the engine which gives us that good feeling we are about to move on… but alas, it isn’t so. One trip to the dump Sharon asked to drive it back. She doesn’t ever drive so I said sure and she drove it back to the site. Her drive was a bit white knuckled but she did fine!

One afternoon we went for another hill country drive. The spring wildflowers of blues, reds and pinks are starting to give way to the later seasoned flowers that are predominantly yellow. We did come across a nice field of yellow with Texas symbolic Long-horned cattle.

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Another day we had an unexpected visitor. I was up early one morning and heard a noise. When I looked outside a pair of geese landed in the vacant RV site next to us.. Well I had never seen geese that looked like this beautiful pair so after snapping some photos and watching them for nearly an hour I looked them up to see what they were called.

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They were Egyptian Geese (Alopochen aegyptiaca) which are widely distributed throughout Africa, and southern Europe. They are especially common in southern Africa, below the Sahara and in the Nile Valley. Primarily a grazing bird, they establish a permanent pair bond and mate for life. They have established a feral population here in central Texas. While they may not belong here they are quite beautiful birds!

A couple more RV’s have departed leaving only us and two other campers.  We continue to be so very thankful we are able to enjoy the safety and solitude of the park until its inevitable reopening.

15 comments:

  1. Our rig is smaller and Fran enjoys doing her share of the driving, I enjoy her driving too as I get a better view of the scenery. Egyptian Geese - never heard of them, sure are a colorful pair.

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  2. Go Sharon!! Cool looking geese. Still no word here on an opening date, at least none they've shared with us. Stay safe!!

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  3. I always tried to get Norma to drive the rig. Even, like Sharon, just a short distance because you never know when you might have to drive to the next town or whatever. It never worked, she never drove it an inch.

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    1. Well, Croft it took ten years but at least she has a little bit of experience now!

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    2. It's just a simple safety precaution. A friend had a kidney stone attack in Mexico in the middle of nowhere and his wife had to drive about a hundred miles to the next town with a hospital with him laying on the bed. It is a good thing to be able to do.

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  4. Beautiful photos. Looks like you have a pretty great location to enjoy!

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    1. With no one around it has been great! That will all change when they finally open back up tomorrow...

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  5. Those are beautiful geese even if they do kind of look like zombie geese!

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  6. I'm definitely envying you too being in the park with so much wild life around. Glad they let you stay. Parks around here are all closed to everyone. Very interesting birds very far away from "home".

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  7. I have never seen that species of geese. Thanks for telling us what they are.

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