Out of character... but oh so neat.

Is it a Bird...a Plane...or is it...Super.....PELICAN?

The front page of our newspaper:
~~ PELICAN invasion in Central Texas~~

Hooray...yes, on the front page of our local newspaper was a photo of about 15 real live pelicans swimming around on Lake Brazos, complete in their awesome snow white coats and giant golden bills and hangey down throats....haha....gracefully swimming near Interstate Hwy 35 at the Texas Ranger Museum and Conference center...right after we had just received a huge WEST TEXAS DUST STORM that almost blew away and blacked our our fair city...as well as sent all OUR rural fields and crops into the great depths of the Gulf of Mexico.

Why should/would this phenominal sight catch my attention? First of all, I love nature and especially birds....from walking in the wood, RV parks, lakes.... or just from my beautiful back patio each day where I put out feed for them....and my beloved often tries to hide my feed sacks because of the bird poop. ha ha

Secondly~~~and most important.... about two years ago, in the early Spring time about mid morning I was on my way home from the grocery store and decided to drive through a very pretty park area near our home and the Lake Waco Dam. A gorgeous pecan bottom full of birds.

This highway is not heavily traveled, so I was loving my leisure drive home. And just as I crossed this rather high bridge a short ways from the Lake's spillway and dam, I glanced down the Bosque River...that almost immediately intersects with the larger Brazos River and the Bosque at that particular point is rather narrow and winding...
but to my shock....I SAW PELICANS!!!

I slowed down, pulled to the shoulder....bushes suddenly covered the sight and I couldn't believe what I had seen, this was so.... well.... different!!! (There were about 8 or 10 beautiful white pelicans swimming gracefully in the river below.) At least it SEEMED odd to me.. for our part of prairie land Texas and after having been born and raised on a ranch with miles and miles prairies!!!

So, I waited.... watching for traffic and when all had passed.... I backed up and sat on the shoulder of the roadway and WATCHED these awesome...out of place....creatures leisurely swimming around in this shallow, heavily shaded river. They were absolutely beautiful. They would dive down for fish, flap their huge wings, splashing water like diamonds all over each other and making sounds that I had never heard. It was a special and wonderful moment....or at least I THOUGHT IT WAS..... I was totally entranced by the whole awesome scene.

As a family, we had always loved vacationing with our two kids, along the coast lines/ways of the United States from the tip of Texas to Florida and seeing pelicans was always a great treat and highlight. So, to see Pelicans swimming around in ranch and farm country in the middle of no where.....of this state is quite different to say the least.

So.... naturally----and most MISTAKENLY...I eagerly told my friends and my family!!!

Not a smart thing to do....I realized later. I was teased unmercifully!

One of my dearest friends and an older retired pastor and professor at Baylor University heard me telling his wife my exciting story....he quickly laughed at me and said "now I know we Baptist are accused of DRINKING "the snops", dear....but you take the cake....you're slurping it in the early morning, girl you got it bad when you start seeings FLYING PELICANS deep in the heart of TEXAS!!!''

Even my sisters immediate statement...."now what kind of drugs did you say you were taking?" (ha ha ha)

So, needless to say....I shut up about my 'exciting PELICANs in the River story...even tho it was true".

So, yep...it was a real treat for me to open up my newspaper and find a beautiful photo to prove the truth of what I reallllllllly did see and nobody believed me back then. :-(

(and another point....just for the record....I also....have a few 'other things in life that I have witnessed' that no body would ever believe...if I told it..... BUT GOD SAW IT. too.
So, it's OK and I'm happy and in the Best of COMPANY. :- )~~~~ha ha

Have a blest day....everyday! Call me and tell me about your own story or stories. smile! Meantime, may the birds fly...pelicans fish....the stork bring new babies....but not to me tho hahahaha I love just being a Grandma to so many! All are His Kids, too!!! ~~~ :-) ~~~~