Winter just doesn’t want to leave us alone. It’s St.
Patrick’s Day and the temperatures were a very chilly 48 degrees when we got
up. Where, oh where is the sunshine and 80 degrees? We feel we need to don our
woolen knickers and mufflers before we venture out!
Last week I mentioned that Dick had come down with a
terrible cold. He’s still suffering (as am I from listening to him cough and
hack day after day…). However, Monday he finally decided to see a doctor, only
to get the diagnosis that it was bronchitis. A visit to the pharmacy at our
local Walmart, he comes away with antibiotics, codeine-based cough syrup, as
well as over the counter cough syrup. They’ll all either cure him or kill him!
While he was gone I made coconut crème
bread pudding for the St. Patty’s Day potluck dinner at the clubhouse that
evening. Dinner was preceded by happy hour; almost everyone, Irish or not,
donned their Irish finery to celebrate—but not quite like Blinky (Ida) or Fuzzy and Judy!
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| Ida's earrings and necklace blinked -- hence, her name," Blinky." |
You
may be interested in a little history of St. Patrick.
As
you know, on St Patrick's Day it is customary to wear shamrocks and/or green clothing or accessories
to continue the tradition of the "wearing of the green”. St. Patrick is said to have used the 3-leafed shamrock
to explain the Holy Trinity to
the pagan Irish. Much of what is known about St. Patrick comes from the Declaration,
allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in Roman
Britain in the fourth century, into a wealthy Roman-British family.
His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest in the
Christian church. According to the Declaration, at the age of
sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic
Ireland, where he spent six years there working as a shepherd. It was that
during this time he "found God". The Declaration says
that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to
take him home. After returning to Ireland, Patrick went on to become a priest,
and worked to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The Declaration says
that he spent many years evangelizing in the northern half of Ireland and
converted "thousands". Tradition holds that he died on 17 March and
was buried at Downpatrick. Over the following centuries, many legends grew up
around Patrick and he became Ireland's foremost saint. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick's_Day)
During happy hour, friend and resort neighbor, Steve, entertained with his guitar and voice.
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| Larry and Steve (on guitar) |
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| L to R: Margaret, Sharon, (Gene in background), Gail, Marcy and Lyn |
And, the park “artists” showed their work. During the winter, one of the activities was a painting class taught by Lyn Bezemek (Michigan), who is also the resort chef when she’s here. This year the class attendees painted cowboy boots and scenery; here’s a sampling of their work.
Lyn prepared a fabulous Irish stew, while the rest of the
dinner was supplied by resort campers. There were salads of various kinds, and
of course, desserts. YUMMY!
Dick spent a terrible Monday night, coughing and hacking for
most of the night. Finally drugged enough, he slept fitfully, of course keeping
me awake, too. Oh, the crosses one must bear for loved ones!
Tuesday’s weather was beautiful, reaching the low 70s with
sunshine most of the day. That afternoon our friends Karen and Steve, and Marty
and Steve joined us at our camper for happy hour outside. We so enjoy their
friendship; there’s never a shortage of conversation.
It appeared that the weather was finally turning around.
Wednesday was another beautiful day with temperatures reaching almost 70. Dick
is on day 3 of his antibiotics and we’re seeing a little improvement in his
health. That afternoon, prior to happy hour at 4 p.m., we joined Jamie and
Anne, Alice, Bill and Carole, and Art for a couple rounds of Pegs and
Jokers. Men and women tied 1:1. Dinner
was spaghetti and meatballs, salad and bread. Yum! And, I didn’t have to cook!
Dick worked for a good part of the day Thursday, on things
for the Resort office. I did some things around the camper, then spent a good
part of the day knitting. That evening, as a “last supper” of sorts before
friends Marty and Steve, and Lawrence and Ann leave, we decided to get a group
together to eat at Hatfield’s Barbeque in Rockport. We noshed on ribs and
brisket, potato salad, green beans and corn on the cob all the while
entertained by a local musician (who sounded a lot like Willie Nelson).
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| L to R: Marty, Karen, Anne, Judy, Gary, Lawrence Steve, Dick and Steve |
Afterward, Lawrence and Ann, and Gary and Judy headed down the road to Ingleside to play bingo, while the rest of us hit the local Dairy Queen to top off our meals with dessert. No disappointment there!
Dick had another bad night, due
mainly to BBQ indigestion we think. (Gosh, I hate when he’s not feeling well!)
After breakfast Thursday morning we walked about 2½ miles along Fulton Beach
Road, seeing our friends the blue heron, redhead ducks and a spoonbill. When
spoonbills fly the pink in their feathers seem to be amplified 100-fold to the
brightest pink—just beautiful!
One of the highlights of the walk was watching a
blue heron “dine” on his catch of the day—looked like a small catfish. Here are
two videos taken of this delightful scene (someone walking too close to the
heron scared him away in the first one).
Part I - Heron eating fish
Part II - Heron eating fish
One of the highlights of the walk was watching a
blue heron “dine” on his catch of the day—looked like a small catfish. Here are
two videos taken of this delightful scene (someone walking too close to the
heron scared him away in the first one).Part I - Heron eating fish
Part II - Heron eating fish
We needed a few items at Walmart,
and Dick wanted to pick up a t-shirt for friend Bob in Washington, so after our
walk he took off on the motorcycle to do his shopping. While out, he stopped at
the Rockport Cemetery to take more photos of the wildflowers growing in
abundance there (see last week’s blog). He also stopped at the local farmers
market to pick up yet another bag of grapefruit (our 8th since we arrived in November); we have just
another couple of weeks until grapefruit season is pretty much over….sad…)
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| George Fulton was founder of Fulton, Texas; for more information on this great man of Texas, go to this site. |
Alby's, a local fish market, buys tons of oysters from the oyster boats coming in to Fulton Harbor from Copano Bay, then shuck them and sell them. This is just one of their piles of oyster shells behind their establishment.
Friday evening we had dinner at
the Boiling Pot Restaurant with friends Larry and Terri (Michigan). The Boiling
Pot is a unique place: white paper is spread over the table, and after you’re
seated a bib is placed around your neck by the wait staff. Décor is hand-drawn
pictures and notes written the white paper and tacked to the walls and ceiling.
Seafood is plentiful with your choice of full meal deals with Dungeness, blue
and king crab, shrimp, crawfish, sausage, corn on the cob, and red potatoes; or
individual selections of shrimp, crawfish or crab. We split a full meal deal
among the four of us, without crawfish, and did not go away hungry! Larry and I
also ordered gumbo, but it was so spicy and rich I couldn’t eat it all there.
(I wanted to save room for the other good stuff!) The pot of seafood is literally dumped on the table for us; no utensils here--just fingers and wooden mallets! Loaves of fresh wheat bread were in
abundance, too, to help assuage the spicy-ness of the dinner. Seasoned
Cajun-style, the food was really good—and plentiful! YUM!
After dinner we headed to another local eatery, Alice Faye’s on the Bay restaurant, located along the water in Fulton. While we enjoyed the ever-good margaritas, we were entertained by Jul and The Chrome Wheels Band. They’re an acoustic duo that “plays a variety of popular rock/funk/blues/country/reggae----and more”. Apparently, they also have a larger band, not with them this night. They were pretty good! Thanks, Larry and Terri for a really fun evening!
Saturday—day 6 for Dick on
antibiotics. We were finally seeing a real turn in his health, so much so that
we took a walk along Fulton Beach Road to see what we could see. Although a bit
foggy, we did see egrets, buzzards, a couple of blue herons, an osprey and a loon (yup,
they winter down here). It’s almost the last for the flowering yucca plants,
too.
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| Osprey |
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| Buzzards |
That evening was an end-of-the-year get together for all us “Winter Texans,” held at the clubhouse. We all brought snacks to share, and our beverage of choice, all the while listening to the juke box and chatting away. A game of Pass the Aces was going on, as well—as I said there is never a shortage of things going on around here! I made “olive cheese puffs” for our contribution to the snack table. They really went over well; a good time was had by all.
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| These tables were loaded with snacks for the get-together. |
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| Pass the Aces |
If you know Dick and me at all, you know we share just about everything...including maladies. I woke up Sunday morning with a scratchy throat and a voice that sounded like it was coming from “way down under…” I wasn’t really coughing; I just sounded bad. We’ll let you know next week how this progressed, or if I was able to beat it. Stay tuned!
That’s it for this week. Hope all
is well with you. Drop us a line; we’d love to hear from you, and what’s going
on in your lives!
Hugs,
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