The Roadrunner was here!

Yesterday at 6:00 the Roadrunner finally came through our site. I just barely saw him out my dinette window and grabbed the camera and ran to the kitchen, focused and - can you believe it? - he stopped.  What a beautiful bird!  If you click on the photo you'll get a good close up with all his colors - I love that his eye is so clear and the red markings, too.  Here he is:

I finally have a good, clear shot to send to Mello Mike for his 2013 Roadrunner Photo Contest.  The contest runs until the end of May, so if you have (or get) a good shot of a Roadrunner, send it on over to him and get in the contest.  You can send up to three pictures.  I never thought I'd win last year, and WhoooHooooo, I did!  Maybe this year is your turn.  Click on his name above to visit Mike's post with the information, and e-mail him your favorite Roadrunner shots.  (His e-mail address in in his "Profile.")  Good Luck!

And then there was a funny bunny scene going on under my chair. I put the seed container under there to keep it out of the sun, and a couple of the birds have come by to check it out.

Today the bunny came by and tried to figure out what was going on with these seeds he couldn't get, and I just had to photograph his dilemma.  He was very entertaining. :)

How do you get this top off?

It's on there too tight.

Okay, let me think about this.

He walked around the container a couple of times, climbing up, sniffing the lid, you could almost hear his mind working.

Can I get it open from this side?

Then he sat down and scratched his head, and gave up.

Well, I just can't figure it out.

And away he went into the bushes.

I'm taking my cotton tail and going home.

WELCOME to our newest follower, Becky! She and her husband bought a trailer and are planning a trip to Alaska this summer.  Her blog is not an RV blog - yet - but it looks like she is pretty crafty. I went back a way in her posts, and she even made scrapbook digital kits.  They look really nice; I used to lurk all over those sites, looking for just the right thing.  Becky, we are happy to have you along on our travels, Welcome Aboard!  

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

Another day in my desert paradise

Lots of wind lately - Katie and I are rocking and rolling.  The temps are really nice, though. Warm during the day and cool at night and in the morning.

We continue to be visited by our various bird friends.  There are two little doves that come around from time to time.  I see them more than adult doves, but I'd guess the adults are somewhere nearby.

 Two young Mourning Doves

Today there is also a single baby quail in camp, and he looks smaller, about the size of the White-Crowned Sparrow.  Maybe a new solo chick? 

Poor thing, he just keeps walking around looking for seeds, going from one part of the site to another, all by himself.  I wonder if he is going to survive; when the other birds get excited and fly into the trees for cover, he just continues to walk around.

I haven't seen him fly or even walk very fast.  :(

Adult Mourning Dove - keeping an eye out for the little ones?

The Gambel's Quail are usually on the ground searching for food, or scooting quickly to a bush for cover.  I was surprised to look up and see this guy out in the open on a branch.  He was like the Hawk, constantly looking right, middle, left, middle, etc.  Of course, he was probably searching for danger, not his next meal.  He is such a beautiful bird, I never get tired of watching them in the yard.

This next photo is of one of the quail who was taking a dust bath, kicking up the dirt until she had a nice little hole to lay down in.  She sat there looking around for a while, then got up and scurried away.

A couple of new Hummingbird photos:

Anna's Hummingbird

Anna's Hummingbird in flight - perfect form!

This is my new fire pit:

I've since gotten it straighter and in the middle of the rocks.  I like the way it looks in my campsite.

Lots of people here have fire pits (I guess it's not really a pit) made from the inside of washing machines.  The inside part has holes in the metal which gives great air flow and keeps the fire going.  Bea and Peter have one of those.  When I was at their campfire the other night, they had a great fire going.  I'm assuming mine will work (without the holes) since there is air coming up from underneath.  I'll let you know how it works.

The other day Katie and I were carefully walking through the brush around our site, and I saw it buried way inside some dried branches under a tree.  Probably one of the past residents of this site used it, and stowed it there for the next time they are here.  I know some of the full-timers do that.  Anyway, I drug it out and put it over a bunch of rocks I made a fire ring with.  There aren't any holes in the washer tub, but there would be air coming from below with it on top of the rocks.

I haven't had a fire yet while I've been on the road, or bar-b-qued, but I do have a little bar-b-que and another metal rack on legs.  I have some papers I want to burn that have personal information on them, so one of these mornings when it's calm, I'll throw them into this thing and light them, and put the rack over the top so no burning pieces will fly out.

I wonder how the rust would affect the air if it was used for a real wood fire?  Or if I cooked something on the wire with a wood fire?  I think I'd take the tub off and put the bar-b-que rack on top of the rocks with coals underneath if I wanted to cook.

Here's our bunny again - there are at least two that come though, the one below and another one that has a notch cut out of his left ear.  Is there anything sweeter than a little fat bunny?

UPDATE on my tendinitis:   My left wrist and thumb are almost 100 percent, but my right thumb is giving me problems.  I looked up on-line to see what it could be, and I think it's called Trigger Thumb.  Unfortunately I can't shoot bullets from it.

I searched on many different sites, and this seems to be what it is.  One of the posters said her doctor told her to tape her husband's thumb at night, because that's when it seems to get worse.  I was waking up with it really clicking, not locking up, just a click that was worse in the morning, then gets somewhat better during the day and then worsens again late afternoon and evening.  I don't have any medical tape, but I wrapped my thumb with electric tape and within a few hours, the clicking was much better.  That was a couple of days ago, and now when I wake up, there is no clicking.

I wonder what my kids would say, nothing like having your mom wrapped up in electrical tape.  But, what works, works!

I took the tape off this morning, and my thumb started clicking again, so it's back on.  Now on my shopping list I have surgical tape and a thumb brace if I can find one.  Using this tape hasn't diminished in any way using my thumb.  It just seems to keep that one joint stable.

WELCOME to our newest follower, Cheap Chick!  She is a Canadian who is not an RVer, but I was very interested in her posts about how she handles her grocery budget.  Good food for thought, if you'll pardon the pun. :)   I don't follow many non-RV blogs, but Cheap Chick is now on my blog roll, and I'm looking forward to future posts.  Welcome aboard, Cheap Chick!  Thanks for following along with me and Katie. :)

From me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)

An excellent day for campsite birds

I woke up to rain on the roof this morning.  I love being in The Palms when it's raining.  Flocks of Black-Throated Sparrows filled the site for a while, then flew off to more seedy pastures. It will be cooler today.

Wednesday Katie and I went into Holtville to do some laundry.  I totally stripped the bed, mattress covers and all, and turned and flipped my little memory foam mattress that is in the bunk we sleep in.

After hearing terrible things all the time from full timers about laundromats, I finally encountered a bad one.  I put my clothes into two of the working washers.  About half were broken, unplugged, had dirty water sitting in the bottom, gross! (which I realized after my laundry had already started) and then put my mattress pad in another larger one.   All the washers in the front row except this one larger one were not working.  I was using the back row, along with two other customers, for my clothes.  Everything was fine until the wash was done, ready to dry. The clothes were fine, but the mattress pad, bright white when it went in, was now covered with dirty patches.  It was disgusting.  I took it out, put in another washer, added a bunch of Clorox, which thankfully I had in The Palms, and washed it again.  It came out almost white again, but hopefully the Clorox did it's job.  Yuk.

This is the only laundromat in Holtville, but I talked to a local who was also using the machines, and he said most of the town goes into El Centro, 11 miles away, or Brawley, 20 miles from Holtville.  Next time I'm in town to dump and get water/propane, I think I'll continue on to El Centro to the Walmart to do my shopping and any laundry I need to do.  So, use the Holtville laundromat, there's only one, at your own risk.

Anyway, I was there longer than I should have been, then I picked up a few things at the local grocery, dumped the tanks and got water, and came home right before dark.  I was pooped.  And I still had to do all the bed stuff.  There's a cover that zips on the mattress, very hard to get back on, then I put a large, thick mattress pad on that to give us more height and softness, then the sheet.  It's impossible to do that on the bed, so I always have to pull out my couch for a larger surface and do it on the couch.  God, what a pain!  Then heft the mattress back up on the overhead and position it.  Then put the duvet cover on the down comforter, again on the pulled out couch.  Finally the bed was done. :)  But I was exhausted.  Just changing the bottom sheet and washing the duvet isn't a big deal; thankfully I don't wash all the bed linens very often.

Yesterday was a day of total rest and enjoying the view out the windows.  It was overcast all day, looked like rain, but it never came.  Still warm and breezy.

This jackrabbit comes through the campsite from time to time, usually Katie sees him before I do and she barks like crazy.  The rabbit runs into the bushes.  Today I saw him first and got some pics.  He was loping down a little trail right under the branch upon which was sitting a Cooper's Hawk.  I was watching the hawk and here comes the rabbit.  Later I wondered why the hawk didn't try to get him.  Maybe the rabbit was too big?

I think he is so cute.  He doesn't stop,  just hops along through the site.

The fat little bunnies stop in our site, looking for seeds and they stay around a while.  The jack rabbit just continues on through.

Below is the hawk.  Isn't he beautiful?  And stern looking?  He sat on this branch for quite a while, just turning his head back and forth.  Then it suddenly he took off, must have found something for dinner.

Thank you, Judy, for your comment.  I love it when you guys give me corrections and/or new information on birds.  According to Judy, this is a juvenile Cooper's Hawk, and one way of telling is because of his eyes.  They are yellow.  I totally missed that.

Cooper's Hawk

I got out my field guides to identify the birds.  One of the things it said is that Cooper's Hawks eat small birds, and I realized this is the first time there were NONE of the little birds around that are usually chirping up a storm.  They are either on the ground searching for food, or in the surrounding trees.  I can almost always hear them.  But I guess they saw the hawk before I did, and scrammed!

Earlier I saw this female Costa's Hummingbird sitting on another tree branch, right by the humming bird feeder.  

Costa's Hummingbird

Then a bit later I noticed this bird. When I looked him up, I thought he was one bird, but Judy suggested another.  These Birders with a capital B see things I miss. He does have a pink/salmon cast to his upper chest and under feathers that I missed, and I think Judy is correct that he is an Albert's Towhee.

When I'm flabergasted that my friend Hazel can tell which bird we're looking at just from the way it's flying, wing shape or span, or something like that, she says it's experience.  After a while you notice things, then more things, and after a while you automatically see things that a novice birder misses.
 

Dark-Eyed Junco (or probably Albert's Towhee, per Judy)

He is rather plain in comparison to the other birds around, and a little bigger.  I watched him for a bit, then he flew down to the ground where I had my little container of bird seed.  It used to have cashews in it, but I put some of the seed from my big bag into this container.  I can leave it out and throw a little seed around each morning.

Poor thing, he kept pecking at the container, walking around it, pecking again. He would jump back, cock his head, and jump back up to the container and try again. He couldn't understand what was going on.  He could see the seeds, but couldn't get to them.  He put on quite a show for me. :)

Later he, or one of his buddies, hopped around scratching and kicking up dust.  Look at the dust around his little feet!  I just read in my Field Guide about some birds taking dust baths.  It was in the Gambel's Quail section, and that is something the Quail do.  They make dirt depressions and kick the dust up over their bodies to get rid of small insects.  I saw the quail taking a dust bath on the other side of the site a few times, and after kicking up enough dust to make the depression in the dirt, they sat in it.  I wondered what they were doing.

Taking a dust bath?

Pretty eastern desert sky at sunset.  So soft looking.

All in all, a great day for bird watching and jack rabbit photos.  Still no Roadrunner, maybe today.

From me and Katie, have a great Friday, everyone!  :)

Hot Springs LTVA

Katie and I walked over to the springs the other day and I got some photos.  Because there were people in the pools, I didn't get any close-ups, but I will in the future.

I posted some photos last year when we were here, but at that time I didn't realize there was a body of water behind the wall of palm trees.  I knew there was some water, but I thought it was a narrow stream or creek.  It's an actual pool, and when we walked around it,  I saw a man swimming there.  It was just beautiful!

I peeked through the wall of trees last time, but this time I walked further to go around the trees, and saw this through the first opening:

And further around the small area was this opening, and a man having a swim.  It's not deep, at least not along the sides where I was talking to him, but he said the water is lower than it has been in the past.

This is shot from the other side of what I call "the grotto."  (There is a sign that says no swimming, but this man said he has been using this pool for years and years.  Probably because he is very quiet and leaves the area the way he found it.)

See the green palm trees in the rear of the pool?  Those are the trees in the front that block the view of the pool.

This is the wall of trees along one side:

These are the palms along the front side of the grotto that line the pool in the photo above. They are next to the two pools that are the "hot springs."

Some people ride their bikes over to the springs and just lean them against the fence or a tree.

Below is one of the pools that wasn't being used.  I talked to a couple of women who were there, and asked them why the water was going into the pool.  They said it was a little too hot, and when the water goes through the air, it cools down and therefore cools down the pool. The shower can be turned back and forth, into the pool or into the shower area.

Then they moved the shower bar back to the shower area and stood under it.

Isn't that a great way to take a shower???  You are not allowed to use soap or shampoo or any other products, I'm sure, but a good warm shower in that beautiful little area must be pretty refreshing.

All this, right in the middle of a desert, and alongside a major freeway.  But when you're in that area, it is the only thing you see and hear.

I always have Katie with me, and she isn't allowed in the area, so we just walk down and enjoy the ambiance.  One of these days I'll go without her and have a nice soak.

From Katie and me, have a great Monday, everyone!  :)

Huge new campsite :)

 Katie and I have moved to a new campsite.  The site below is the old one, tucked away right next to a side road.  Our site was between the lights you see and the bushes immediately next to us on three sides.  I liked it very much, it was cozy, but I kept my dinette curtains closed all the time for a little privacy.

On Tuesday we went into town (Holtville) six miles from Hot Springs.  It's a nice little old town with everything I needed, even free wi-fi while we were parked outside the library.  I have wi-fi of my own, but couldn't get a couple of apps downloaded to my phone, and as soon as I connected to the library's, my apps immediately downloaded.

The propane is right across the street from the dump/water place.  I paid $7 to dump and $2 for a tank full of water.  I thought the price was good.  Happily, I had no problems taking the sewer cap off when I dumped the tanks.  That was a relief.  (I'm still applying heat and taking Ibuprofen, and every day my wrist and thumbs feel better.)

I also visited the pharmacy and got some Icy/Hot cream for my wrist, and went to the local grocery store for a few things, including some new Ibuprofen to replace my out-of-date bottle.

Sometimes when I'm doing these chores, I'll drive around the campground a little, to see if there's a better site available.  When we got back we did just that - and in the process found Bea and Peter at home.  They are fellow bloggers who I found through Denise's blog.  They had left a message for Denise, saying they were at Hot Springs, so I knew they were here but I didn't know who they were.  Bea sent me a message and we finally met on Tuesday.  They are a beautiful couple from Canada with a big, beautiful dog who was very friendly.

Peter told me about a campsite near them, right around some bushes, that is very private.  Katie and I walked over to see it, and unfortunately it would have put us in the wrong direction for optimal solar collection, but we walked a little further to check out the area.  A man named Fred came up to me and asked if I was looking for a campsite - he was leaving the next morning.  So I went over to his site, which is huge, private, surrounded by bushes and trees, and actually has two driveways leading into it.

This photo is taken from the main road, you can see the left driveway, the other comes in behind The Palms.

I told him I'd like the site after he leaves, and he said to pull in my motor home that day and I'd be there and settled when he left.  And that's what I did.

Fred invited me to a campfire that the people across from my old site, right down the road a bit, were having, so we walked over and enjoyed the company of three couples who are camped near each other.  The people who were having the campfire have a HUGE dog, and he was so distressed by having Katie nearby but he couldn't get to her because he was tied up outside the campfire area.  I finally took pity on him and Katie and I left.

When I woke up at 7:15 the next morning, Fred was gone.  He had a truck pulling his 5er, and a car behind that.  He's a solo traveler, too, but in addition to the truck and car, he also had a motorcycle that he stows inside his RV when traveling.  Quite a lot of machinery there!  I couldn't believe he got everything hooked up and drove away without making enough noise to wake me up.

This is part of the site, with lots of room in front and back of The Palms.  It would be a perfect site for two or three RVs if they were friends.  Fred needed the space for the vehicles he had, but I don't think I'd take this site with just my little motor home at the beginning of the season.  People are starting leave now and there are more spaces available, so I don't feel bad taking this large site.

So, here were are in a beautiful huge site, where I've seen lots of little birds, so far. 

White-crowned Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

House Finch

Note:  Hazel of  Class A Greyhounds, RVing with the Big Dogs is a Birder and left  a message with the names of these birds.  Thanks, Hazel! 

Fred said the Roadrunner has come through this site, so I'm watching out for him.

This morning I was putting out some seed under the bushes these birds are resting on, and heard a loud humming.  Right there in front of me was a beautiful humming bird, so he found my feeders and now I hope to see more hummers.   No bunnies yet in this site, but I know they are around.

It's very quiet here, and I'm really enjoying my stay.   

WELCOME to our newest follower, Hobbea!  Hobbea is Bea of Bea and Peter mentioned above, who I met here at Hot Springs.  Husband Peter has an RV blog, and Bea posts a Dinner for Two blog about quick, easy meals she prepares on the road.  Bea, I enjoyed meeting you and Peter, and your meals look very good and easy to prepare.  I'm going to follow your blog, too, and see what's cooking!  Welcome aboard and thanks for following along with us!! 

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  :)