The strong winds gave way to a calm morning today. Should be a great Easter weekend.

 Our old birdhouse posts were in need of repair, but even then taking the houses down and putting them back up was not an easy task. Here Jerry is sliding the miniature goal post onto the new galvanized pipe.

 Two new houses were purchased at Home Depot.

 The winch allow the houses to be easily moved up and down the pole for access.

These are two of the old houses from last year. During the off season, Jerry is planning ways to utilize the poles as flagpoles or something of that kind. Maybe put up some nautical flags.

Every time Jerry repairs this gate and makes it stronger than the last one, some fool comes by and destroys is. He did this yesterday. Will it survive this weekend?

We are still trying to extend our bulkhead to about the spot that I was standing to take this picture. We have three bids, but the low bidder is worried that the AEP post could be a problem. Scott and I met with the contractor and two AEP representatives on Thursday. The bulkhead would go between the post and the fence. The AEP representatives estimated that the cost would be about $2,000 to send a truck out to hold the post vertical while the bulkhead is built. We told them we could just build 20 feet out of the proposed 30 feet for now and they could come out this fall to fish their pole out of the bay. They will turn this over to their community relations department to see if they can work with us to reduce the cost.

 You have to look very carefully, but there is a Purple Martin perched at the top of the new galvanized pipe we will be using to mount our birdhouse. The old wooden post was pretty old and was at risk of giving it up in strong winds. There was a  concern it could fall on a boat. We moved the pipe away from the boat parking to be safe. Several martins have been searching for their houses from last year. They are ready to get started.
We saw some sparrows flying into the shop. Jerry checked and they were on the old house trying to get a leg up on the martins.

Kevin installed this high gain dish to improve our WiFi signal. So far it seems to be helping.

 Dick and Judy are still finding some fish at the end of the breakwater. The drum pegged the scale at 50 pounds.

Lina purchased and Jerry planted a variety of flowers around our entrance sign. This is not just to look nice, but also to experiment to see what the local deer population will leave alone. We have had a lot more deer this year and they tend to come down the entrance road at night to see what's on the menu. Jerry planted a rather large bougainvillea only to find the deer really like that one.
I have seen something this winter that is a first. The last two weekends in February found our pool filled with folks.  Mostly kids, but some adults. Hopefully the pool will stay warm for spring break.
The warm February combined with my newest electrical provider allowed by electric bill for the month to be less than $45. That is a new first too.
We have run into some electrical line issues in trying to build a bulkhead to stop the erosion across from 708. AEP is sending out an engineer to determine if they need to move their line pole.

Our volunteer tomato plant at our office may be bearing the first ripe tomato of the season for Aransas County.