What's Been Happening!

It is amazing to realize that it has almost been a month since I posted. I must be getting lazy!

Here are a few items to share some of our activities over the past few weeks.  

I will also post several other blogs today, one featuring the plants and one the birds we have seen.

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One special thing that happened was visits from dear friends, Jim and Tonya, and recently, Wayne and Ginny. Both couples stayed in the campground with us and explored some of the special sights in the area like Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. 

                        

     

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I mentioned the special onion of this area in a former blog. They are called the 1015 Onion referring to the day they are planted. We loved watching the fields filled with the young plants, seeing them grow, 

and finally capturing some pics of the harvest. The onions are in the burlap bags!

So of course, Latona and I visited the Texas Onion Festival. We had been fascinated with this special species of onion that grows only in the Rio Grand Valley. 

                                

  

It was a fun experience and we had a chance to try one of the deep fried onions, and to buy a few onions for ourselves.

This festival was complete with a Miss Texas Onion contest, food booths, fun activities, and a live music concert.

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On another day out, we visited Roma Bluffs, one of the nine World Birding Centers.  It was a beautiful day and we hiked on the bluffs above the Rio Grand River.

One of the special things we learned in this historical area was about the "Calvary of Christ". These seven priests were traveling ministers during the period from the mid-1800's on. These men traveled through the Rio Grand Valley building chapels and churches. The church in Roma, 

    

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On a trip to visit Laguna  Atascosa NWR we were fortunate to see a Texas Horn Toad. What a study in natural mimicry! It was a special sighting. Can you find it?

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A few days ago, we experienced a Texas-sized hail storm.  We are now waiting for the estimate to fix the dents made by the baseball-sized solid ice balls. We were fortunate that we only have a few small dents but some people lost their windshields and had much more damage than we had. For fifteen minutes we felt like we were in a war zone!

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Now we are finishing our time here in Texas. It is amazing to realize how fast these months have gone! We have two weeks until we start our journey north. Spring has come to the Rio Grand Valley and it has made us excited to start on own migration north, just like the birds. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️