Well, we have a new student arriving from Switzerland on Wednesday. Now we are going to have to Texanify a very Swiss kid.  NO foie  gras or pate for him.  It's barbeque morning noon and night.  Then gumbo, Then jambalaya. Then Mexican food.

Then we will introduce him to the cows next door. Don't want him to miss out on highbrow conversation. He can talk to the goose over there who thinks he's a cow, too. (Not to imply this dude thinks he's a cow. But to imply that in addition to talking to the cows, he can talk to the goose for highbrow conversation.)

Foie gras is made of goose liver. In Houston, you can buy a tin of it for $1500. That's right -- $1500.  (or you can buy a tin of sardines for 69 cents. your call) But it's not just ANY goose liver. its from a goose that has been force fed truffles to make his liver really fat.......geeez. What will the French think of next?
 

All animal rights organizations, and nearly all animal welfare
organizations regard the production as cruelty to animals because of
the force-feeding and the health consequences resultant from enlarged
livers. Foie gras production is illegal in several countries and in
several U.S. jurisdictions.

DJ muses -- health consequences?? The damn ducks are going to be killed and eaten! Who cares if they have an enlarged liver due to too much truffle consumption?

I love snakes and reptiles of all sorts.  The Houston Zoo has a pretty decent reptile house. I love the Washington Zoo in DC  -- it's awesome.  I've been to zoos  everywhere -- San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Cincinnati, the Bronx, the London Zoo, San Antonio, Chicago, DC, New Orleans, Tampa, and of course, here in Houston. I really love zoos -- especially the ones where the people are in the car and the animals roam free.  Here's some shots I took Wednesday at the Houston Zoo.

This is a copperhead.  I've found them on my back doorstep.  They are not afraid of humans and live in the suburbs around here.  They are a pit viper.  They pack a pretty nasty bite but are not fatal.

This is a Gabon viper -- among the world's most venomous snakes.  The bite is usually fatal. They have the longest fangs of any snake in the world.

this is a snake with cool looking eyes. I don't know if he is venomous or not.  But he is pretty.

this is a water moccasin. They live in the river I live on.  They are venomous, territorial, and they will chase you.  You can ask Geordon or TJ about it. They know from first hand experience.

This is a coral snake that just molted, so its colors are very bright. They are as venomous as a king cobra and their bite can be fatal. They have to chew the venom into you. Once they bite you, the hang on and do not let go.  They are beautiful in color and are tiny and cute -- about 12 to 18 inches long.  They look pretty harmless, but they are deadly.  We have found three of these in the past three years.  Before that, I had not seen one since I was 9 years old.

The zoo had a gorgeous lioness. They lady standing beside me said, "Oh its so cute and cuddly -- it just looks like you could lay down beside it and pet it.  But that is not a good idea. It will eat you.

She posted for a lot of cool shots. I got about 30 good shots of her doing stuff.
 

Then she got sick of the photos and told me to f*** off.

We went to the Houston Zoo yesterday and took about a gazillion pictures.  The animals were so cool, they were really cooperative in posing and looking nice. 

Madison took this awesome picture of a sleepy koala.

I took this picture of his not so sleepy friend.

Chung Hwa took a bunch, also, on Geordon's Canon. I used my Konika Minolta Z3. If you are looking for a great camera with features normally found in higher end cameras get the Z3. It used to be $500 last year and now sells for $200 -- if you can't afford Canon's Digital Rebel XT -- just get a Z3!

We did some image editing today, to make image sprays out of  things we took pictures of on our field trips to the  Texas wetlands.

Micah chose a brownwood flower. She's masking it here.

Youngsun chose to mask a weird cicada bug that died trying to hatch out of its shell

Carlos chose to mask a cow's butt..............we are not sure why and we certainly did not ask.

Madison masked a dragonfly

Harry Potter goes to our school

That's all for today.

playing: SOAD chop suey remix -- richard cheese

school is going good. we are all learning a lot. It's going to be a really interesting semester.  We've  got a lot of awesome photographs already  from our field trips to the Texas  wetlands.

Chung Hwa took these pictures yesterday at Armand Bayou Nature Center

Here's a couple I took yesterday:

tho cute!

Tomorrow we are going camping at Huntsville State Park for a kick off leadership workshop for the Houston 2gen. They are taking over the education of 2gen here in Houston. The older 2gen will become the teachers of the younger 2gen. We are going to have an awesome program for sure.

Here's the cover I made for our book for resource materials on the Texas wetlands

Chung Hwa is already becoming a Dreamweaver, Flash and Painter IX.5 expert.

I want to master Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Painter IX.5 -- those are my personal goals for the year.

sometimes your heart  feels like it got hit by one of these

when that happens, my advice is to cry.

hope this helps.

dis la Rindy onna way to Michigan in July

We went to JJ Mayes Wildlife Trace today -- it's part of the Trinity National Wildlife Reserve.  There are so many huge national wildlife reserves nearby -- I had no idea.  Each one is about 20,000 acres.

It was a beautiful and solitary wetlands -- peaceful and quite -- we were the only people there.





The wildlife was well hidden. This lizard camoflauged himself well among the tall reeds.



Autumn is in full swing and seeds from plants are everywhere.  This exploded cattail in no way resembles its former self of earlier summer.

At the end of the wooden walk above the marsh was a very nice sitting area, and a clean, paved trail to other parts of the wetlands.

but............

we saw something that we had no idea existed.................

...........a spider apartment complex.........

and.......

these were NOT small spiders..........

The webs were beautiful BUT........

the spiders themselves were TERRIBLE.

They ate giant grasshoppers......

but not without Matrix-like battles.

They spun HUGE webs across the trail, and hung there like satanic Christmas tree ornaments, brightly decorated and two to three inches long, each.

JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBUS!!!!!!!!!

all in all, it was a very stressful fied trip..........

I don't think I'm going to sleep well tonight. Every time I close my eyes, all I see are spiders.........

froggie-ness

Yesterday we went to the San Bernard National Wildlife Reserve. We went there because we could not find the Brazoria Wildlife Reserve. How can you misplace 20,000 acres, I ask you?

This bullfrog was huge -- about 12 inches long with legs outstretched. With the 12x zoom I was able to catch this guy sitting in the ooze 50 feet away.

This lil guy was smaller and greener and closer -- about 5 inches long. He sat stock still in the water, not wanting to be seen.

probably he did not want to be eaten by this black rat snake, also sitting stock still in the reeds -- about 10 feet away.

 Here is a yellow flower that is about a half inch across. I took a macro shot of a twin blossom.
The Wildlife Reserve is home to over 300 species of birds, and countless species of plants, insects, and animals.

This is a juvenile tree frog. When full grown, it's about two inches long.  It's really cute.

 Dragon flies look really weird up close.

They look even weirder in the larva stage.  Here is the empty shell of a dragon fly once it climbed out and dragonflied itself.

Here is a cicada monster that never quite made it out of it's shell.

This cow is  a Brahma. It is originally from India.  They do well in the hot climate of Texas.  The little herford calf following behind is her baby.  Obviously the dad was not a Brahma.  I guess its sort of an exchange marriage, then.

We went down Bobcat trail, but there were no bobcats at all.  Only dozens of huge garden spiders with webs everywhere, hanging over the trail.

gaaaaaaaa! they were everywhere!!

J eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeebus! I HATE spiders!!!!!

The pink flower is MUCH nicer than the spiders.

So is this acorn.

We had an awesome time out there.  We will go there again in the late fall, when 80,000 geese nest there for the winter.