Wet Hike to a Landslide

There was a landslide on Monday along Walnut Creek.  Nobody was hurt, but the area has been cordoned off for now.  Kris, Katie, and I took a long hike through the creek and overland to see the slide (and stayed safely outside the police lines).  It corresponds to roughly the spot shown in the picture with Karen sitting by the water near a cliff on the post from 4-22-12 ("Picnics").  Rocks fall (it's that whole gravity thing), but this is considered pretty rare, so we are not really worked up about it.  Found some nice wildflowers, including this patch of indian blankets.

Austin Dragon Boat Festival

We went to the Dragon Boat Festival this afternoon. Not as big as the one in Seattle on the last sabbatical in 2005, but nice.  There were also booths and a stage with matial arts demonstrations and dancing.

Katie's Dance Party

Pillow Elementary School had a "dance party" this evening.  It was basically sort of a school dance where the parents brought their kids.  Mostly the parents sat and the kids ran around and talked (they were grade schoolers, after all).  Karen and Katie did some dancing and enjoyed the event. Kris is doing a sleepover; I arrived late from work. When we got out it was still light out, so we went over to Amy's Ice Cream.  A gaggle of grackles raided my hamburger while I was briefly away from the table (I got a new one), so now I'm really irritated with those birds.

Baby Bluejay

This baby bluejay apparently blew out out of a nest near our apartment.  We did not see it later, hopefully it made it to safety.  The warm weather is definitely coming in now. April has been pretty dry, so now things are turning brown again. I collected some bluebonnet and indian blanket seed pods - I hope I can plant them in Peoria.  I told Karen that Austin really has two seasons:  greening and browning. WalMart was selling watermelons last night, so I brought one home (we did another summery food activity, corn-on-the-cob, weeks ago).  I wore shorts to work today, but what surprises me is how hot my black shoes get in the full sun while waiting for the bus ride home.  On tonight's bus ride home we went around a recently occured SUV-motorcycle accident.  I caught a glimpse of the motorcyclist laying on the ground and not moving - there was nothing on the news so I assume he survived.  Ron Paul spoke on the UT campus tonight - the primary is still about a month away. The delay in the primary is due to controversy associated with jerrymandering by the Republicans. (I'm not picking on the Republicans - the Democrats do the same dumb thing in Illinois.)

Electron Microscopy of a Cracked Dried Film (Colorized)

Thought this looked neat.  I added some colors and lens flares.  The original picture is in my new blog: Dr. Campbell's Favorite Demos: http://campbelldemo.blogspot.com/

Picnics

Early this morning the noise from some nearby partiers woke me up, so I went out to look for meteors.  I did not see any, but I did find (and catch) my first gecko of the year. We'll probably just hang onto it for a couple days. Note the milk jug cap for scale.  Today we cooked hamburgers at Walnut Creek Metro Park, then cooled our toes down in the creek.  The girls caught a bunch of tadpoles.  The air has gotten pretty dry here, making for warm days and cool nights.  It got to over 90 today for the first time since February.  The girls went swimming this evening at the apartment pool, and we had mac and cheese there.

Austin Family Music Festival and the Biscuit Brothers

Well, Austin bills itself as the Live Music Capital of the World and has plenty of music festivals and venues. Today was the 6th annual Austin Family Music Festival.  It was held at Pioneer Farms, the historical farm park that Karen and Kris volunteer at every other Monday morning (to feed the animals).  This park is also the set for the PBS show "The Biscuit Brothers." This is a children's music education show with a rural Texas theme and excellent production quality (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biscuit_Brothers and http://www.biscuitbrothers.com/).  The show runs on Saturday mornings on PBS and is enjoyed by our whole family. This music festival is a major fundraiser for both Pioneer Farms and the Biscuit Brothers show.  Karen and Kris's volunteer efforts at the farm earned us all free admission to the event.  We were not able to see all of the acts, but we did see (and enjoy):
- 3rd Generation - 17, 15, 13 and 10 (?) year old girls and boys in a German folk band - songs included Sound of Music songs and the Beer Barrel Polka
- Magnificent 7 - big band blues with nice lead vocal

- Austin Ukelele Society - picture about 15 ukelele players covering Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again"
- The Snow Days - they did funny rock songs about childhood - my favorite was "Whole Lotta Lunch" to the tune of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"
The Biscuit Brothers group were involved not only in the final concert but also throughout the day, with one member doing a sing-along on the hay-rack ride. Katie got autographs. We were all really impressed and enjoyed the event.

Local News Items

on the weather side: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/even-if-drought-worsens-lake-levels-should-remain-2315499.html
on the darker side (this happened at an apartment complex across the street from ours): http://www.statesman.com/news/local/police-woman-set-husband-on-fire-locked-him-2315443.html
 
on the lighter side: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/austin/entries/2012/04/20/willie_nelson_statue_unveiled.html

Bike Ride

Kris and I took a little bike ride tonight.  Not many bluebonnets blossoms left, but the prickly pears are starting to blossom.

More Walnut Creek

We explored more of Walnut Creek Metro Park on Saturday, this time all of us on foot. Weather has been warm and starting to get a bit dry again, so we had a lot of fun in the cool water.  Since the creek flows over a lot of bedrock there is not much mud to mess of the water, although there is a lot of algae right now.  We did see something creepy though (besides the poison ivy): we found black masses of harvestmen (daddy longlegs) under ledges on cliff walls (look above Katie's head in the first picture). If you disturbed them they would scatter in all directions. OK, daddy longlegs are not venomous and they can't even bite people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvestmen), but it looked like something out of a scary movie.  Today we went bowling - it was fun. 

Warmth

April 9 (1914) was the latest in the year that Austin's temps dropped to 32 F.  Temps this year have been above average quite a bit - but not super hot.  So far we have not turned on the AC, but others did so a while back in the apartment complex.  The girls used the pool toys they got for Easter yesterday, but it was not as warm as I would have liked.  Bugs is in the middle of his springtime shedding.  The bluebonnets are starting to go to seed.  They get fuzzy pods that resemble soybeans.  We also started seeing Texas nightshade blossoms last week - I saw them last summer and fall, too.  Saw a horned lizard on the trails on Sunday.  Today I moved my lab experiments back to the third floor lab.  There still needs to be more renovations and moving stuff in the future.  Busy weekend for the Austin Police Department - a police officer was shot and killed, and in a separate incident, a police officer shot and killed someone, sparking racial tensions.

Easter Weekend

Yesterday morning I took a hike into Walnut Creek Metro Park, only I limited my fossil hunting and focused on exploring.  I saw some nice hike and bike trails and of course more wildflowers (e.g. Queen Anne's Lace in blossom).  In the afternoon we went to a bowling birthday party for one of Katie's school friends.  After that we went to the mall and Katie saw the Easter Bunny and rode a train.  Karen attended a long Mass Saturday night; Katie, Kris, and I decorated eggs.  On Sunday morning the girls opened presents and candy, and then we all went to celebrate Easter Sunday Mass.  In the afternoon we all went to Walnut Creek Metro Park for an enjoyable hike and bike. (Despite my explorations and maps I got us a little lost, but we all had fun.)

Have a Blessed Easter!

Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!  Here is a picture of my girls in the Texas bluebonnets, paintbrushes, and other wildflowers.

More flowers

Katie and I went for a bike ride this evening.  We found some nice wildflowers on a nearby community college campus.

White Squirrel

Tuesday's spectacular tonadoes in Dallas stayed far away.  In Austin that night, the storms along the front line sort of grew up as they passed over us - nothing like Dallas got. It rained on the bus ride home, but both getting on and off was dry. We heard thunder from the apartment, but did not get rain.  Today I saw a white squirrel on the UT campus.  This squirrel had dark eyes and some tint in the fur, so I do not think it is an albino like the one in my parents' yard in Green Bay last week.

I found an 86 million year old pearl!

OK, not quite...one of the casts of the Inoceramus fossils that I found this evening (I was hunting with a crowbar) had an iron sulfide nodule in it.  So I guess the large clam fossil had a 1.5 inch fool's gold "pearl" in it - seems appropriate for April Fool's Day. I also saw a scenic outcrop. Karen and Kris turned last weekend's strawberries into strawberry jam this week.  Temps this weekend were in the upper 80s - the family went swimming in the apartment pool.  Kris had a couple of friends for a sleepover last night and that went well.