Our new site, gems and birds

Yesterday morning we moved up the hill a bit into this nice campsite.  It doesn't have a shelter over the picnic table, but  I think I like that better.  This site feels bigger and more open, and being up the hill, we have a better view.  I think it might be the best of the six dry camping sites.

Our new site.

Some little rocks I picked up for my collection.  You can take up to 15 pounds of Rocks.

This is the sign for the trail we took yesterday.  

The Palms is there in the first row of RVs.  Quite a view!

These are the rocks I picked up along the trail.  I haven't broken them open yet, and I'm not sure how I'm going to do that, but we must have some tools that I can use.  When I have them opened, I'll post the photos, probably the next post.  Honestly, I wasn't sure what I was looking for, so I took a few that looked like "eggs" and the rest were just to increase my odds.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I have at least one good one.

There's a lot of activity around the campsite on these quiet, sunny, breezy days.  I haven't even put out the bird seed yet, and we've still had a squirrel and lots of birds.

Squirrel in our site.

I looked up the following bird, and I think it's a Lesser Goldfinch.  Let me know if I'm wrong.  NOTE: Hazel let me know it's a Hammond's Flycatcher. Thanks, Hazel!

Hammond's Flycatcher

Juvenile White-Crowned Sparrow

Remember when I was at Quartsite the first time and the Mourning Dove kept puffing up it's throat and no one knew why?  I was afraid it was sick or had something caught in it's throat.  I had forgotten all about that until I saw this White-Winged Dove yesterday, just sitting there across the road with his throat puffing, deflating, puffing, deflating, etc.  Well, I'm thinking it must have something to do with the mating season.

This is his normal throat.

Look how puffed up his throat is in this photo.  I wonder if he's courting.

We had a really pretty sunset last night.

Today is a little overcast - I wouldn't mind having some rain.  It would be good for all the desert plants, and maybe bring out some flowers.

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

Rockhound State Park - our new home

Katie and I are at Rockhound State Park in Deming, NM.  We were lucky to get the last dry camping site, #5, when we arrived yesterday around 3ish in the afternoon.  It was a nice site, but I couldn't get us level enough, so this morning Katie and I took a little walk up the hill and found that two of the campers had left this morning and we moved to another site.

I was watching the birds out the window yesterday and found a new one I haven't seen before, a Cactus Wren. 
 

Cactus Wren

It's a very pretty bird, and the two I was watching were busy. One had feathers in it's mouth and landed right in front of The Palms.

Can you see the feathers in the beak of the bird on the left?

It then flew to a cactus in our site's cactus garden. It disappeared for a minute, and then was visible again, and I knew there had to be a nest right there.

You can see the Cactus Wren near the top of the cactus, and it's nest behind it on the left.

This morning I checked the cactus and got a good look at the large nest.  I took a close-up of the entrance, but it was too dark inside the nest to see anything.   I love this time of year.  All the birds are nesting.

Large nest in the middle of the cactus.

This was our first campsite - #5 - the last dry camping site available.

This little cactus garden was part of site #5 - the Cactus Wren nest is here.

Rockhound State Park Visitor Center

Did you know you can publish your blog on Amazon.com and sell it as a Kindle subscription item?  It costs 99 cents a month to subscribe and the posts are delivered to your Kindle automatically when they are posted.  I decided to publish Me and My Dog ...and My RV.  Once it was "live," I became a subscriber to see what it looks like.  I thought it was just fine and decided to keep it available.

Of course, anyone can read my blog for FREE right here, but if you'd rather have a Kindle version and are willing to pay the subscription rate of 99 cents per month, click on this link.

Me and My Dog ... and My RV (Kindle Version)

If you think you might like the Kindle Version but don't want to commit, there is a 14-day trial period, and if you decide it's not working for you, or not worth the additional expense, just cancel it before the 14 days are up.

Very interesting, huh?  Anyone who has a blog and wants to publish it to Kindle through Amazon.com can do so.  I checked today and pulled up a report on my blog, and to my surprise I already have subscribers.  I don't know how they found me, but I was really pleased.

We've only been here at Rockhound one day, and so far we are loving it.  They've got good, well defined trails which I like for me and Katie (they also have rattle snakes, and I figure we'll be safe on a nice trail).  I know my friends Gayle and Jim love the trails here, and they are serious hikers, so there's a good range of hiking trails.  This afternoon we took the 1.1 mile Thunder Egg Trail and I got some rocks - I'm going to break them open and see if I've found any geodes.  I'll show you some photos tomorrow and let you know if we found anything good.

TV reception is also very good here and my Verizon and Internet service are the best so far in Southern New Mexico.  

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

More Pancho Villa photos

I think Katie and I might leave Pancho Villa State Park today and move on to Rockhound State Park.  The HIGH winds - WOW - are finally over.  Two nights ago I went to bed at 10:00 and was buffeted so much I finally got up at 2:00 am and turned on the computer and read blogs for a while until I was really tired and thought I could sleep.  Last night I went to bed really late so I could fall asleep easier.  We've been waking up at 10:00 am lately. It's still a little breezier than I'd like, but no high winds today.

I want to drive into town to do laundry, get propane and access the free wi-fi at the library, and I'm not sure if we'll drive on or come back. 

I have photos of birds and their nests and also some campground photos, so I want to do two posts in one today.  So - following are the photos I wanted to post that are representative of this park.

The electric/water sites are very nice, pretty well spaced, and have  covered tables, bar-b-ques and most are drive through sites.  They will accommodate any size rig.

There is a hill in the park with paths leading around it in the cactus gardens and up to the top, where there is a flag pole and three benches facing in different directions to rest and oversee the whole area, all the way down to Mexico on one side.

Cootes Hill - the large water tower is outside the park, across the street.

Visitor's Center

There are a lot of signs explaining the old buildings (or parts of buildings, etc.) and history  throughout the park.  Here are a few:

The first Grease Rack - see sign above. (My site was at the end of this grease rack.)

And finally, some bird and nest photos to finish up Pancho Villa State Park.  I hope the nests are all still there after the high winds the other night.  It was too windy to walk over and check them or the owls.

Pyrrhuloxia - male

Pyrrhuloxia - male

Eurasian Collared Dove

White-Winged Dove

 

Female House Finch

White-Crowned Sparrow

I never did see a Roadrunner. :(

And here are some cool nests, they were high up on the branches.  Between me and Bea e-mailing back and forth, it was determined they are Bullock's Oriole nests.  I didn't see any Bullock's Orioles in the park, but I sure saw a bunch of their nests.  Here are a few:  

And this nest - obviously constructed by a different type bird.

LATER:  That's about it for Pancho Villa State Park.  After doing my chores in town, I continued on to Rockhound State Park and was lucky to get the last non-electric site - there are only six without hook-ups.  I thought I'd better finish this post -- the next one will be from Rockhound.

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

The Village of Columbus

Pancho Villa State Park is actually in the Village of Columbus.  There's a lot of history here.

Katie and I walked into town yesterday - I wanted to use the wireless at the library to update some apps on my phone, but the library closes at 1:00 on Saturday and we got there at 2:00, so we'll have to go back.  Maybe tomorrow.  I shot a few photos while we walked around.  It's a very small town with a couple of restaurants, a library, post office, hardware store, grocery, lounge, police department, etc.  As their website says, the town is "largely undeveloped."  All the necessary things for a town, but not much more.  The town was very quiet, no traffic, and I didn't see anyone walking around.

I took a few photos as we were walking to the library.  The following were taken at the old train station which is across the street from the State Park;  we walked around it and found some interesting things:

 Next to the old station is this little caboose:

And in the back was an old fire "engine."  It looked really old:

And here's an old gas pump, it it was about half as tall as our current pumps:

The rail road crossing sign at the corner:

And finally, an old cart with some really old suitcases that were very cool. They reminded me of the suitcase/storage I have in The Palms:

Here's a picture of my site, which is one of the three "slots" in this area that is part of the overflow parking.  Two or three rigs could fit into each slot, but there are only two of us here in this area so we have lots of room and privacy.  I was told I could also park my motor home anywhere along the outer fencing where there are no utilities.

There are cactus gardens all through the park.  It seems like there would be a lot of work involved keeping all the gardens looking nice.  Unfortunately a couple of years ago there was a really bad freeze and it killed many trees and cactus. Some of the cactus are coming back and growing up through the dead ones.  In a few years, it should be beautiful again.

Here's one of our beautiful sunsets:

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