Meeting neighbors, chasing coyotes

WELCOME to our new followers:

AsianGypseh, who is a new vandweller and a comic book artist, per his profile.  That's really interesting - I'd think, depending on the subject of your comic books, that you might gather some interesting things to write about living this lifestyle.  I enjoyed reading your blog so far, good luck with your travels, and thanks  for following along with me and Katie!

Jeff & Sheryl Bright, who aren't showing any information, so I can't plug your blog, but we're love your comments and we're happy to have you along on our adventures!  

DON - welcome to you, too - I don't see any info for you either, but if you have a blog, let me know so I can check it out.  Thanks for following Me and Katie, and signing on to follow our blog.

Welcome aboard to you all!  :)

...and by the way, I got an e-mail from Wandrin Lloyd wondering why I was welcoming him as a Follower.  I follow his blog, and I know he at least sometimes reads mine, because he leaves comments from time to time, and I thought he had decided to become a follower.  Well... my apologies to "Wanderin'," who is not Wandrin Lloyd, whose blog is "Wanderin."  I was a little confused, you can see why, but I apologize to both Wanderin and Wanderin', and want to WELCOME Wandern'.  I think I have that right... Whew.

When I woke up Tuesday morning, there was a Class A rig next to me, and a car, and she was getting situated.  She parked just in the right place, so hopefully there won't be another rig trying to park in between us.

You never know what your neighbors are going to be like, and here, where we're camping for so long, it's even more important that you don't get a bad neighbor.  Of course, you can always move, but I like where I am, and I hoped for the best.

A little while later she came over, and we introduced ourselves.  Turns out she is a solo, too.  I invited her in, and we got to know each other a little.  Her name is Hazel, and she travels with two rescue Greyhounds, beautiful, sweet dogs, and two cats, but I didn't see them today.  She is going to be a fantastic neighbor, I think I really lucked out.  She's been here before and knows the town, where everything is, very knowledgeable about Quartzsite.  She offered to take me shopping to buy an outside rug when she went into town to the post office, and I took her up on it, so an hour or so later, off we went.  We ran a few errands, and I almost completed my shopping list that was on my phone app.   Super nice lady!  I'm going to enjoy having her as a neighbor.

After that I just puttered around, put the rug out and nailed it down, put up more solar lamps outside, re-checked yesterday's blog and hit "publish" and out of the corner of my eye, I saw another coyote.  He was moving behind Hazels rig; he had come up out of the wash, and was soon walking behind The Palms.  Of course I grabbed my camera!  (The photos through the screen didn't work - all screen, no coyote!)

I was keeping my eye on him, because when Katie and I came back from our walk, I noticed a little dog on a leash tied up outside a nearby rig, with no owner around that I could see.

Circling around to the neighbors on the other side

Their coloring sure blends in well.

All of a sudden, the coyote circled around, got down low and looked like he was stalking.  He started slowly running toward the rigs where the dog had been, and I grabbed Katie's leash with the whistle on it, and went running.  I blew on the whistle, and the coyote stopped and looked at me, and kept going, so I blew again and ran toward him, and he turned and went out toward the middle of the camping area.  He was in view for a long time.

When the coyote was across the street, Darlene, my other next door neighbor, came out of her rig with her little dog on a leash, so I warned her to be careful, and we watched the coyote until he was behind bushes and rigs and we couldn't see him any more.   She's been coming here for a while, and had lots of coyote stories to tell, and lost dogs, and dogs coming home hurt, bitten, etc.  There was one dog in the row I'm in, down at the end, she said, who was taken by a coyote when the owner was standing right there with her dog on it's leash.  Whoosh, the dog was gone.  Can you imagine?

I told her about seeing the dog tied up outside, and she knew who's dog it was.  The dog wasn't there then, so I don't know what the coyote was going after, maybe the birds.

This happened right after 4:30, it was still completely light out, so these coyotes are not at all afraid of us (except maybe they will avoid those of us blowing whistles).  I'm not going to let Katie out of my sight, and I got out the SPRAY SHIELD, Animal Deterrent Spray that I had gotten when we were rushed by those dogs a few months ago. I had put it away, but I'm going to keep it handy now, that's for sure.  I put the whistle on her leash handle to protect me if I felt scared about a human that was threatening, but it's nice to know it might also work with animals if you blow it loud enough.

I hope if any of my other neighbors saw me outside blowing a whistle, they didn't think I was trying to gather them all up for the Pledge of Allegiance, or something.

So I met another neighbor, Darlene.  She was really nice, too; everyone here has lots of stories about the people, places and happenings in Quartzsite.  I love hearing all about it.  This is the only time I'll be a complete newbie here at Q, so I'm soaking up the atmosphere. 

When Hazel and I were at the store, I got bird seed for the window feeder I bought last year. I've never used it on the road, but loved it on my slider in the condo.  This is such a good place for birds that I took it out and got some seed.  I also got a hummingbird feeder that has a suction cup for the window, and now we have bird feeders on the couch window and the dinette window.

Almost right away we had a Verdin land on the hummer feeder.

What the...?

Where's the food?

This can't be that hard to figure out...

 Oh, I get it.

I asked Judy which book she would suggest for me to help identify the birds I'm seeing.  She recommended  "The Siblely Guide to Birds."  My neighbor, Hazel, has the book and loaned it to me to try it out and see if I want to purchase it.  She also has the app on her smartphone with the same info the book has, so I could get the book or the app.  She told me this bird is a Verdin, and I looked it up, and sure enough, it is. 

 Sunrise on the Q this morning.

 Doves on a wire.

I thought once we got here, things would become kind of boring, but so far, not so much... It seemed like a pretty full day, and even Katie was tired early.  We seem to be living by the sun coming up and going down, and we are both in bed earlier than usual.

From Me and Katie, have a great Wednesday, everyone!  :)