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Monday, May 11, 2026 at 2:02 PM
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Miles to go in Mountain City

By Pauline Tom


These cool mornings are enough to inspire feet to take off walking.


Marjie Kelly mentioned that a full circuit around Mountain City is two miles.


Daily, throughout the year, Phil and Elaine Kiernan walk the route twice a day and add an extra leg to make each trip 2.5 miles. Surely, they get the star for “most miles walked” for accumulating these five miles  day in and day out for sixteen years. Make a quick guess of the total mileage. It’s over 20,000 miles!


Sallie Wilson on Maple wants to make sure you know that she’s disciplined to faithfully, diligently watch The Kiernans walk past. 


The discipline of walking ranks number one among experts across the board when it comes to warding off dementia.


•••


Penny Moulder posted on FaceBook a photo of a small rattlesnake they found on their living room floor just beside the sofa. It was just beside Jerry’s feet when he took them off the sofa. They’re thinking a kitten brought it inside.  She joked that maybe it came inside to eat their scorpions. (KissMe found three scorpions at our house last week.)


Penny was in Lubbock this past weekend for family weekend with Samantha, so she missed the Fire & Ice Festival.  She participated in creating the name of the festival.


Congratulations to Vicki Senefeld, city treasurer, who walked away with the hot salsa trophy and to Patricia Porterfield’s son Jarrett (of Kyle) who scooped the winning frozen treat with his toasted almond and candied cherry recipe.


•••


At Fire & Ice, Laura Craig mentioned she forgot to tidbit early in the summer when she witnessed a fierce hummingbird battle with sword clashing and body bashing which resulted in the winner pinning the loser to the ground. WorldOfHummingbirds.com says Aztec warriors believed they would be reincarnated as hummingbirds. And, Aztecs would decorate their kings with cloaks made entirely of hummingbird skins. 


Laura emailed the link to a fascinating high speed video that shows how a hummingbird’s tongue splits when hitting nectar to trap a quantity of nourishment before zipping closed to carry the nectar back into the beak. Yes, they drink with fork-ed tongue.


Marjie Kelly found bright green horned caterpillars eating her Desert Willow the morning after Fire and Ice. With a little help from her friends she learned they were tomato hornworms which become the Sphynx Moth.


Tidbits become bits and pieces of “Montage”.  Please contribute so we can have some fascinating reading once the column returns after a two-week break. Email [email protected] or?512-268-5678.



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