Brrrr

I know it is cold in most of the country now, and this may seem warm, but it has been 36 degrees all day with a strong north wind and misty rain all day.  Pretty much undesirable.

 Wednesday, after doing our 3-month doctor visit and going to the airport to get Patty's luggage that showed up in Harlingen a day after she flew into Corpus Christi (due to fog the plane circled Harlingen and went back to Houston in the morning) and we picked her up there about 4:00 pm Tuesday,

we went down to Brownsville, TX to Texas Gulf Trawling where we got lots of information about shrimping.  Got tour of a shrimp boat that will be in the water Friday.  Showed us how the nets are deployed and told of the 50-some day trips the crew must make to stay out until the freezer is filled.  They "head" the shrimp, rinse them with water and a chemical I can't recall the name of that keeps the black off them when exposed to air, and then put them in plastic tray like containers with lids, fill them with water and quick-freeze them, turn the containers over and fill them with water again and freeze again and then they are stored below deck in a 0 degree freezer until unloading later.

Phyllis had her hand up in time to be one of the contestants in a little contest to remove the shell so she won a 1 1/2 lb. box of shrimp and the little tool by removing the shell of 5 shrimp a little faster than another lady.

 The owner telling about shrimping.  His company makes shrimp boats to sell, and have several that do the shrimping.  They contract with the captain who gets his own crew and decides how to pay them (percentage of catch).

        Looking up at the nets.  The round metal item with the parallel rods are turtle excluders.

The metal object at the left of this photo is the gate that spreads and forms the opening of the net when it is under water.  The shrimp actually live under the mud and sand at the bottom of the gulf and the nets are drug directly on the bottom.  Log chains are drug ahead of the opening which riles up the mud and brings the shrimp up enough to get into the net.

Guy at right is a "header".  He is holding the shrimp in his gloved hand and pops the heads off with his thumb.  He has to go through the whole pile of shrimp, heading them and putting the shrimp into baskets, flushing them with sea water and then filling the basket with a very heavy salted water and putting them in the quick-freezer before the next pulling-in of the net in 30 minutes to an hour or more.

He told about the quadrupling of diesel price and the fluctuation of shrimp prices that usually didn't keep up.    He elaborated on the farm-shrimp raising in foreign countries that have devastated the price of wild caught shrimp and the antibiotics usually used in such farm raised shrimp and the unfairness of the different countries tax levied on the shrimp shipped to the US.

We got to eat boiled shrimp that had just come in from a boat a few days ago, though for some reason I did not get a picture of them--guess too busy eating.

Monday was the February Kenwood Residents Association meeting.  Phyllis is Treasurer so was on the stage.

Took this photo of Bob Rabb supervising Bobbi Rabb planting some flowers in their front yard.  They are just 2 houses down from us.

Last Sunday several people met in Weslaco at a Chinese Buffet with Lyle & Doris Winter and their daughter Kate who had been visiting a while from Minnesota.

One evening Phyllis had several people at our place for Pegs & Jokers.  Photos here were taken during a break between games.  At left is Bev Mayer, Ardel Finken, Phyllis Miles, and Harold Nehr.

Rest of table, at left is Marion Finken, Gordy Maher, LaRohda Nehr, and Lynn Miles.

Received the group photo of our Neihart Tour group that was taken in San Diego in early January.  This was on the morning that we pulled out of San Diego and started east.




I started writing this post yesterday (Thursday).  Is now Friday - was 33 degrees here this morning, but with not so much wind.  Humidity as high as could be without actually raining.  Good day to stay in after we got back from stretching exercises and did a mile on trike around park.  Girls are heading out now to get some groceries and don't think too much activity planned for the day.

Have posted start of February photos to my Picasa page Click HERE

Later, Lynn