Cold Weather and Good Neighbors

 Last week the weather in Texas and the surrounding states decided to go off its meds and freeze the heck out of everything and almost everybody!  South Texas hasn't seen temperatures this cold, that came on this fast, and stayed this long since the 1800s.  And Texas wasn't ready for it...

Fish that didn't make it out to deeper waters froze to death.

Sea turtles that stayed in the bays were stunned by the frigid water temps and those that weren't rescued and brought to a rehab center sank to the bottom and drowned.  (But in our area almost 4,000 sea turtles were rescued and have now been returned to the warmer waters of the Gulf).

The power grid went down...I saw an article where they blamed it on water supplies freezing...I don't know if it's true, but if it is, then they definitely weren't prepared!

And there was really no way to prepare for the frozen water lines and mains...being so close to the Gulf makes the water table here really high, so water lines and mains are not very deep at all...and homes here just aren't built for hard freezes.

We have neighbors here in the park who live in mobile homes.  The pipes under their homes aren't insulated for the cold...people did their best to try to prepare, but there's just no way.  One couple who we are close with have a heat pump/AC unit...but below 40F, the heat pump just shuts down...so they had no heat at all!  We brought them the propane heater from our boat to use to stay warm...they weren't warm, but at least their house didn't freeze!

Then in the middle of it all, not only did the power go out, but the water system froze and broke!  So that pretty much hosed everybody who was trying to keep their water dripping so it wouldn't freeze their pipes.  Folks were using the burners on their gas stoves to heat their homes...while this is somewhat dangerous, it was their only option!

Not a lot of people had generators, but it wouldn't have done them a whole lot of good water wise...pipes were gonna bust no matter what.  But the folks with generators could at least get some heat inside.

We were really lucky in that being from Montana, and having lived multiple winters in Montana in our motorhome, we were pretty much unaffected by the weather.  We had a full tank of diesel which runs both our generator and our Aquahot system which is our water heater and also is our source of heat. When we heard that we'd be cold, we filled our fresh water tank to 60%.  So we had heat, water, and power.  We were the lucky ones.

When we got to Rockport, we joined the local community Facebook group.  The people in the community were offering help wherever they could, and when a request for help was posted, it was answered pretty fast with multiple offers.  This is a tight-knit and amazing community!

The worst thing that happened around me was that on the second day of the freeze, I was looking out the window, and saw some black smoke not too far off.  The smoke got thicker, and I went outside.  As I was walking to see what was burning, there was a loud explosion...a bumper-pull trailer was in full flames and something had exploded.  (it turns out that it was probably the refrigerator cooling unit...the neighbors had already grabbed the propane tanks off of the trailer)

Right then, a fire truck blew past me, and then another...they were really quick to get set up and start dousing the flames...but it was already too late to save any part of the trailer...it was a total loss.  The firefighters managed to keep the flames from damaging any surrounding trailers.

It turns out that the trailer was owned by a young family with a baby and a little boy.  Thankfully, they weren't home when the fire started or it could have been much worse!!  Because there wasn't any heat or water, they had gone to stay with family in the next town.

After the trailer fire was out, we went back home...and pretty soon there was a knock on the door...it was our neighbor with a bucket collecting money to give to the family.  There were about 6 people canvassing the park, collecting for them.  When it was all said and done, in just about 2 hours, these 6 folks collected about $1700!  The young man who owned the trailer was in tears when he saw how much money had been collected from people in the park whom he had never even met!

All in all, I have been amazed and impressed with how the residents in our park, and also the people of Rockport and Aransas Pass can pull together and are so willing to help each other out in the blink of an eye...it just goes to show that there are good people out there!

Couches, Dishwashers, and other assorted things

 So the other day we were outside talking to another couple about motorhomes and fifth-wheels. Shirley was telling us about replacing the recliners in their unit and trying to find one that fits her needs, since she's kinda short, and Bob is kinda tall, so they can't just buy 2 identical recliners.

I told her about our last motorhome...that I couldn't stand the washer/dryer unit that came with it, so one day Dale came home and I was dismantling the cabinet it was in and dragging it out. I had to get a neighbor to come help get it out the door because it was too heavy and lunky (is that a word? It is now!) for us to maneuver. I told Dale I either wanted shelves or, if I could find one that fit, a dishwasher. We measured the cabinet and I did find a dishwasher that fit the hole! So together we installed it and it was great!!

Then we moved back to Montana and were parked at Dale's sister's house, and we were looking at the recliner in our motorhome...it was ratty and the bottom skirting had been chewed off by our first Papillon, Spirit. And sometime in the near past, our second Papillon, Ember, had chewed a hole in the center of the cushion...(I told Dale that she had been trying to smell his farts and got carried away...lol!)

Anyway, we decided to take it out, but since it was still a comfy chair, we gave it to his sister...she used it for a while and then passed it on to someone else.

Dale and I had talked a little bit about taking out the couch and getting 2 recliners instead, but he just wouldn't commit...so...one day he had to go to town...and...when he came home, I was in the process of unbolting the couch from the floor! (Never leave a determined woman at home alone...you never know what she'll come up with!) He was a little unsettled by the thought of taking out the couch, but I said that if we don't take out the couch, we'd never get recliners! So I proceeded to take the couch apart (it was in 18 pieces by the time I was done...it was way too big to go thru the door whole)

So then we had no recliner and no couch in the motorhome....I brought in our folding recliner chairs from the patio to use until we found what we wanted...it took a few weeks, but we ended up getting a 9 foot long, double recliner couch called the Transformer...it was nice and comfy!!! When the delivery guys brought it in, it almost didn't fit thru the door...yikes! They assembled it for us, and we were in recliner heaven! The only issue we had with it was that it was electric and the buttons were on the top of the armrest, around the cup holders...yes, my couch had cup holders!!

But back to the button issue...the issue was that the cats learned to push the buttons...so you'd be sitting there, all relaxed, watching tv...and all of a sudden...you were not so comfy any more because the chair was going back to a sitting position...or you'd be eating dinner, and all of a sudden, you were laying down!!! And you can't tell me that they didn't know EXACTLY what they were doing, because they'd be looking right at me with a great big kitty smirk on their face!

Anyway, Dale was concerned that the selling value of the motorhome would decrease because we had swapped out the washer for a dishwasher, and the recliner was gone, and the couch wasn't original...but as it turned out, the couch and dishwasher were the main selling points for the people who bought it when we traded it in!! Yay!!

But enough of the back story...we have this new motorhome (well, new to us, anyway...it's 6 years old but still really nice) and it has an L-shaped couch...when we bought it we were told that there were recliners in the couch, but it turned out that it only had foot rests that only lift our feet a few inches off the floor and it's really uncomfortable...as a matter of fact, I haven't really liked the couch since we got the motorhome...and we don't have a recliner at all (when Dale is having bad pains, it really helps him to sleep in a recliner)

So Shirley was telling us about their quest for new recliners for their place, and I told her about our old motorhome...and I told her that our couch wasn't very comfortable for me and that I needed Dale to leave town for a day (lol...actually, it only takes a couple of hours to dismantle a couch, so he wouldn't have to go too far away)...and we left it at that...just a couple of neighbors swapping stories....

A couple of days later, Dale comes to me and says "you know, maybe getting recliners and replacing the couch wouldn't be such a bad idea" (HA!! My plan is working!!) He agreed that replacing the couch in the old motorhome had not affected its sell-ability (also now a word!!) and that while this couch was also a sofa-bed, this is our home for the next 20 years or so, and we need to make it comfortable for the 2 of us and not accommodate people who may or may not ever need a place to sleep...and also, when the bed part is pulled out, it actually touches the passenger seat, so we can't even get out of the motorhome without climbing over the bed!! (stupidist (new word!) thing ever!!) (I've always said that I want to meet the people who design these thing and just slap them silly!!!)

So long story short...well, it's way too late for that...so long story just a little bit longer...

We're now looking at what it will take to get the couch out (and see if anybody wants to buy it) and get a couple of nice recliners...It's gonna be a while because we have to replenish our savings after all the stuff we added to the boat...and we still have some work to get done on the motorhome this summer...but when we do, I want a recliner with a cup holder, and butt-heat...yeah...I want butt-heat in mine! And now that we don't have cats, buttons on the top won't be an issue...

Back on the Water...Finally!

 It feels like it's been a month since we've been fishing!  But it's actually only been a week and a half...

The water was baby-butt smooth today...it's almost eerie how the horizon blends into the sky...it got a little bit rougher as the day went on, but not too bad.

We went to a new area today, but had no luck...but that could be because the fish are still recovering and haven't moved back to the bay we were in yet.  Another week of warm weather should have them back where they belong!  (on the end of my line, that is...lol!)

It's C-C-C-Cold Down Here!

 Well, it was plenty cold in Rockport last night!  We got down to 18F for most of the night, but it's starting to warm up...it just got up to 19F!  It's only supposed to hit 34 for a very short while this afternoon, then drop back down into the 20s for the night.  But after that, we'll be warming back up to the 40's and be in the high 60's by Sunday! 

When I got up this morning and it was 18 here, our home in Montana was only 6 degrees colder...that's crazy!  But they'll be a lot colder than we are really soon...

I can't wait for the weekend so I can try out my new lures!  I hope this cold snap hasn't affected the fishing too much and that the fish haven't been affected adversely.

ALSO, we were watching Texas Law, and the ranger was talking about the bag limit for Red Drum...I thought it was 5 fish, but it's actually only 3!! (Yes, the first thing I did was check the Texas Fishing website to be sure)  It's probably a good thing that we haven't caught our "limit" of redfish yet, because that would be a huge ticket for us both if we got caught!  Yikes!

Here's a couple of pics of the cold weather...the first one is my bedroom window...and no, it's not frosted glass!!

Welcome to my new blog!!

 So a bunch of people have been commenting on my Facebook page that I need to have a blog...well, here it is!

There are so many options for designs, themes and layouts...and I don't like choosing...what if I don't like the things I chose?  

Well, I guess I can probably change it all up until I'm happy with it...I just don't know what I want yet.

I'm also hoping that there's a way to backdate posts so I can copy my Facebook posts over to here...I'm really not sure if that's even possible...oh, well, as I always say...Google is my friend!  (well...actually...Google is more like that person that you don't really trust as far as you can throw them, but they do have some useful information, but you have to sift through the garbage to find out what you need)

But at least I have a blog!

Now if only the weather would get nice so we can go have some more adventures!!

 Texas is so different than what I'm used to...the water is normally 60F or above...and that is what the fish are acclimated to. Having fished only the Oregon coast, high mountain lakes and rivers, and Montana lakes, it never occurred to me that cold water could kill off game fish.

We're having a cold snap this weekend, with the highs dropping to the low 30s and the lows dropping to the low 20s, so the water temps will be falling also.

In 1983, there was a severe cold snap that killed off as many as 20 million sea creatures in the bays here, and, just as the fisheries were recovering, in 1989, there were 2 more episodes of severe cold weather that killed off millions more fish. One of the cold snaps even froze the bays!

Having fished only cold waters before we came here, it seemed strange to me that Fish and Game would close the waters to fishing due to cold weather...but looking at it logically, it makes sense that fish that are fully acclimated to nice warm water would have difficulties when it gets cold.

So, no fishing for at least a few more days...for the fishery's sake.

Another interesting point...I was watching a tv show about Texas Fish and Game and the ranger was heading out in his boat during a cold spell to a bay not very far from here. He was heading out to net sea turtles in the bay. I didn't know that if the water temps dropped below 50F, that sea turtles become stunned and can't keep themselves afloat to breathe, so they sink and drown. So the rangers were netting them, taking them to a facility to keep them warm, and then releasing them into the warmer waters of the Gulf when the weather got a little better.

I like learning about new places...I hope you do, too!

 With the bad weather we are forced to take some time off of fishing, which may not be a bad thing...but just to keep it interesting, I ordered some new lures...okay, they were "free"...I only had to pay postage and I have to post pictures of the fish I catch with them...now I just need good weather!!

12Tammy Broniec, Vicki Hall Carroll and 10 others

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 Tried a new fishing area today...it's about an hour's drive to the launch...

We caught a few little trout...but I caught my personal best trout! 20 1/2"!

Dale added another species to his list...he caught a Ladyfish...it's not a good eating fish but I read that they're good for bait...didn't do us any good though...

He also hooked something that was strong and fast!

We're thinking it was a big flounder! And if it was, it was huge!

The only other thing we figure it could be is a sting ray...but it wasn't really fighting like one.

Anyway, he got it to the boat but when I tried to net it, it dove under the boat and wrapped around the motor and busted the line...now there's a fish swimming around Marker 47 with a strawberry paddletail lure and about 25 feet of 20lb yellow braided line...somebody's gonna get a bonus!

33Candice Carroll, Dianne R. Sain and 31 others

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• Grace Shewmake

  

  

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• Chet Lutz

  Very nice. Much better that the crab you hooked Just Sayin 

  

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• Hazel Hammond

  Never heard of a Ladyfish. kool!!

  

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• Sandra Friend Grogan

  Well schucks, maybe tomorrow will be better fishin and catchin........

  Amy Gaston Hafer

  , you should truly write a book on the whims of a true fisher person.....j/s

  

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