Today and tomorrow there are Dragon Boat races at North Shore Park. Dragon boats are long boats ( 40′ ) rowed by a crew of about 20 with one drummer/steerer and a second steerer at the other end. Various local companies and organizations have put together teams for the boats.
Dragon boat racing began in China about 2500 years back. It was an annual ritual and accompanied by festivals. Dragon boat racing will continue this Saturday and Sunday at North Shore Park.
I had heard of dragon boat racing but hadn’t ever seen it so I took a ride by on my bike. The participants were having lots of fun, watching wasn’t as fun. If you’re at the park it’ll be fun to watch for a short while but don’t make an extra trip by.
Rain, rain and more rain, the weather is making up for hardly raining at all last year. I haven’t had much chance to get out with the camera this week. These snowy egrets are cool. They always seem to be looking for the feathers they shed. ‘See no evil’ vulture thought maybe I’d leave if he closed his eyes. Didn’t work. I managed to scare off the whole flock. I’ll have to move slower next time I catch them.
We’ve had one tropical storm south of us this week and what looks to be Hurricane Dean heading in our general direction, but you know how fickle they can be. I’m betting it also heads well south of us late next week.
Local news
One of the things I noticed in the news when we first moved down here is all the kidnappings. We’re not talking ex-husband|boyfriend but random abductions during robberies. There is one in the paper every week or two. This week there was an attempted abduction during a mugging in mid afternoon, in a busy shopping center deep in our little bubble. Texas has intruded into our little island. The local papers and news won’t cover bad things that happen here in The Woodlands. It is bad for business advertising in the paper. It’s getting so the only way to know what’s going on around town is to watch the local forums ( Talk of the Woodlands and Woodlands Underground ). But that is true of national and world news as well.
Weird critters
I’ve been having fun this week taking pictures of vultures. They are huge black birds that feed on road kill. Yesterday I found several hanging out with a group of ducks. Did they think no one would notice? ‘Nobody here but us ducks’.
I was getting in some shots of the deer group and they decided to come over and scope out me as well. They came to about 20′ away and stood and stared at me for about 5 minutes. It is still hard to get shots of the fawn. She ? He ? doesn’t stay still long enough to focus.
And I caught a heron fishing. This guy nabbed two fish at once in his beak.
It’s been pouring every afternoon. I was lucky and went for a short ride, caught these shots and got home in between storms.
