We're seeing some signs of spring

 Note: We're including some blogs from the month of March that were interrupted when we had to make a speedy trip to Oklahoma to help after Denisa's Mother's house burned. So we are catching up with "old blogs" while we are still helping out in Oklahoma.

While some have complained that this winter has been unusually cool in South Texas, others would point out that it was still a lot warmer here than the rest of the country. We thought it was interesting to see this weather report of 84 degrees this winter, and if you check the last line on the screen you will see that this day also includes a "wind chill advisory." Many of our friends down here are from northern states like Minnesota or Michigan, and they would scoff at a wind chill advisory on an 84-degee day.

So even though we've experienced some "wind chill," it looks like winter is finally turning into spring. Even though the citrus trees in the park are damaged from last winter's hard freeze, we see that they are putting on those fragrant blooms to show us that spring is here. Citrus blooms are Denisa's favorite aroma, and she would love to bottle this up to take with us on the road.

Since it is spring, all the citrus needs to be picked off the trees--for two reasons. The first reason is that the tree needs to turn its resources from supporting last year's fruit, to now growing next year's citrus. If you look closely at the bloom on the left, you can see a tiny green ball that will become next winter's orange.

On other trees, we can now see ping-pong-ball-size oranges.

The second reason that we picked all the citrus fruit off the trees is that we want to do our part to stop the invasion of the Mexican fruit fly. We've seen updates on the news of the advancement of this pest that can cause problems for the professional growers in the Rio Grande Valley. The fruit flies thrive in the old fruit left hanging on the trees too long. So we've done our part to get the fruit off our trees, and those of Denisa's Mother's tree, as well as her aged neighbors. While most winters we have enjoyed fresh citrus juice every morning, this was the first time this year we had enough fruit for a pitcher of orange juice.

It was during that juicing that we saw a few of these unique Mexican fruit flies. This one was drinking a drop of fresh orange juice, and we don't remember seeing them before.

Another sign of spring are the new green leaves that are appearing on our bike rides. The trees this far south shed their old leaves in the spring and then grow new ones almost immediately.

Also on our bike ride through the state park, we see that these trees are filled with new spring blooms. This might explain why the pollen count has sky-rocketed to high levels.

All this warmer weather makes a dip in the pool feel good. No pictures of us at the pool, but we did  catch this altamira oriole in the bird bath looking a little soggy.

Another sign of spring is that the birds down south are starting to head north. We were at the state park when a bird count was taking place. Experienced birders spend time on this hawk tower counting the number of birds that fly by on their way north.

Some very inexperienced birders also enjoy the views from the Hawk Tower, looking out over the Bentsen Rio Grande State Park's terrain.

The local birds are also showing behaviors that indicate that spring is in the air. This tom turkey was flaring his tail feathers, and was fluffed up to twice his normal size to impress the ladies.

The side feathers on these big birds looked iridescent as it caught the late afternoon sunlight.

While we have seen lots of chachalaca in south Texas, this was the first one we had seen one strutting with a flared tail. It looks he is also trying to impress the girls.

While we get to enjoy flowers blooming most of the winter, we get even more as we approach spring. We're glad that we are seeing more signs of spring!