McAllen,III

Just finish the dad gum trip to McAllen and move on!

Ok. Ok. I heard ya, already!

The trip back to College Station was much as I expected: a stop at a farm-stand for watermelon; a stop at an ag corporation to network with alums; and a stop just north of Corpus Chirsti for lunch.

The Gulf of Mexico is a wonderful turquoise blue...and cloudier than all get out. Apparently, this is the cost of all the refining that takes place along the Texas coast from Port Author to Corpus. It certainly doesn't have the salty sweet smell of the North Atlantic, but I would have jumped in given the chance.

We ate on the second floor of dockside restaurant and it was cool to watch the brown pelicans and great blue heron and white egrets land on the boats moored in the harbor with a mound of fresh local crab meat sitting in front of me.

The big destination for the afternoon was a rice farm to see harvest. All the images I have of rice farming come from Vietnam War movies. I was informed that the flooded fields of Southeast Asia depend on lots of manual labor. The flooding is actually a weed control measure. But, the rice can't be submerged, so it is germinated separately and then planted when it is tall enough to rise above the water line.

In developed countries, we use herbicides first, plant the rice in dry fields, and then slowly increase the water level as the rice grows. To harvest the rice, the field is drained and then they wait for a rainless period. That's when the combines go to work. And these mo-fo's are big.
Each combine has a huge cylinder in front called the header, that cuts the crop and then sends it through the thresher, where the grain is separated from the stalk. As the header spins, insects and rodents that were living in the fields become exposed...and thus dinner for these guys:
They are cattle egret and they just follow along the side of the combine waiting for meals. I saw two mice swallowed in one gulp, but mostly they are looking for grasshoppers and stick bugs. Up close, they look like:
The coolest part was I got to see the whole process from inside the combine:
And after the combine is full, the grain is shot into a dump truck:
Pretty cool, really.

Then we went to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard. The End.

Something new

So far, the blog has been a running review of my life in Texas. I suspect more interesting stories will develop as I begin teaching, but I hope it will be more than that.

To that end, I found this article in the Wisconsin State Journal about the history of the Arboretum and it's current challenges really interesting.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/299958

McAllen, II

I know, it's been over a week since my last post. I'm turning into Spearot. Really though, most anyone who reads this thing lives in Madison and they could enjoy the chicanery in real-time.

In the interest of maintaining a semblance of chronology, I want to finish up the trip to South Texas, but congrats to everyone who finally passed their prelims. Did we mention the hard part of graduate school starts now?

The purpose of the trip to McAllen was an on-going project studying Arundo donax. For those not familiar with this most fascinating of plants, it's like sugar cane, but bigger. Much bigger.

It can grow up to 30 feet high and sucks up a ridiculous amount of water. As far as I know, it can't be smoked. For agricultural regions like the Rio Grande Valley, water is a valuable resource and they want this bad mo-fu out. In it's defense, it grows so quickly that some think it will make an amazing bio-fuel.

Anyway, we started the day by driving out to a USDA lab on an old Air Force base. After getting past the dudes with guns (ok, they let us through after verifying our identity), we entered the lab.

First lesson learned: we need to spend less on war and bullshit anti-terrorism campaigns and much more on scientific research.

Our tour necessitated white lab coats and booties. I suppose this protects the labs from other organisms we might track it, but I can't be sure. Nevertheless, I learned loads about A. donax.

Second lesson learned: lunch is more interesting than most research.

Yes, lunch was had at the stockyard, where the cattle auctioned on Thursday mornings. It certainly had ambiance. And the sweetest middle-aged watiress:

Us: "What are the specials?"
Her (as fast as possible): "X, Y, Z. You ready to order now?"

Under duress, I turned to the reliable cheeseburger. This was roundly criticized and I was pushed into ordering my first chicken fried steak. They say everything is bigger in Texas. Since it appears some people live beyond 35, this so-called everything must include arteries. It definitely includes asses.

Deep fried death was followed by a meeting with another health economist at Texas-Pan American and then a stroll around Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. Santa Ana is really a remarkable birding ground, with species you just don't see anywhere else in the country, including this guy: Couch's Kingbird

I also saw a grooved-billed Ani and heard a bunch of other birds, but was mostly distracted by the swarming mosquitoes and deet-laced sweat pouring down my body. I eventually hacked my way back to the parking lot and we headed toward Nuevo Progresso, Mexico for dinner.

This was very exciting since it would be my first time in Mexico. Duck-butter or no duck-butter, that's a pretty big deal. In fact, I've been on 3 continents (North America, Europe, Africa) and this was the farthest south I had ever been. We parked before the bridge and then walked over the Rio Grande across the border.

It is obviously an area that caters to day-tripping American's and thus was similar to parts of Morocco I've seen. Cheeseburger was not on the menu so I again deferred to my colleagues. This resulted in frog legs and quail. The quail was tasty, but the frog legs were way too salty. Bananas Foster's flambeed table side more than made up for it, however.

Our short trip ended with a requisite stop at the duty-free liquor store. And since my driver's license still says Wisconsin, I was entitled to 4 times more booze.