Critters, tiny and HUGE

I finished up my birthday cards and drove into Deming so I could get them to the post office in time for Graydin's and Drew's birthdays.  While I was in town, I went to Walmart and stocked up on things again.  I'll tell you, Walmart is my new Costco - I just can't get out of there without spending more than $100.  When I got back to Rockhound, I dumped the tanks, filled up with fresh water and stopped by the showers.  It's nice to get everything done at once.

Katie and I are sooooo tired today.  Something was going on in the kitchen last night. Behind the drawers.  Katie was up and down, wagging her tail, barking, back to bed, up again, over and over again.  I pulled out the bottom drawer and didn't see anything or any evidence of critters.  I have some rat traps with the glue on the bottom and I put a couple of them on the floor behind the drawers, put the drawer back, and went back to bed.

Thankfully all is quiet today. Katie doesn't seem to hear anything, and there's no noise that I can hear.  Either it went back outside, or it's dead, stuck on the rat trap and I'll find it another day.  I didn't want to look back there and find a dead animal today.  :(

I saw some cool critters today - I just love this place.  It has everything!  It was definitely a good photo day.   Here they are - we'll start with the tiny and end with the HUGE:

Male Black-Chinned Hummingbird - he is in a weird position.  I think I have a photo from another place with the hummer in this strange shape while feeding, so maybe it's how they eat.  I have a new feeder with a perch, maybe that will help him out.

Male Black-Chinned Hummingbird

I'm not sure what kind of hummer this is, he has so much green, unlike the hummingbirds in my book. Anyone?

This little guy just shone in the sunshine.  Bright, bright, green.  Look at the beak on him! Not sure what kind he is, either. 

NOTE:  Thanks, Hazel and Judy, this little guy is a Broad-Billed Hummingbird. :)   I always appreciate it when you help me out. That was a great ID, there is no Broad-billed Hummingbird in my Birds of Arizona Field Guide, but after getting the name from you both, I checked my Sibley Field Guide, and there he is.  (Of course, I'm not in Arizona any more, am I?)

Turkey buzzard - I first saw these guys at Bluewater Lake, just soaring in the drafts, like the birds did today.

Turkey Buzzard

Western Kingbird - look at the stripes on his tail feathers.

Western Kingbird in bush, clutching the branch with his little feet.

This next photo was a happy surprise. I was driving down the road toward Deming and saw some cattle standing and lying around off the side of the road.  I love cow faces, and wished I had my camera handy, but my battery was low and it was charging in the dinette area.

Then I saw this large horned steer a little further into the field, looking right at me, and I had to stop and get the camera.  I pulled off on the side of the road, got the camera, focused and snapped his photo as I realized he was mounting a cow.  I didn't see the cow until I zoomed in close and clicked.  I sure got more than I expected.  Sorry, I'm not posting that photo.  I was thinking about posting it and using the title, "Parental Discretion Advised."  Kind of like my nudist photo at Quartzsite - you just never know. :)

He appeared so loving to her, if a steer can be loving.  He kept licking her sides, nuzzling her, laid his head on her rear end for a minute; he definitely liked this cow. 

Check out the huge horns.  (Now I know where the word "horny" comes from. )

He just loved this cow. :)

Yes, you guessed it - The End.  And that's a lot of Bull, for sure!

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

Back-up day - and a birthday card

Today my main objectives are to back up my Blogger blog to Word Press, which is where I copy over all my blog posts so I'll have a back-up - just in case.  I haven't done that in about a year, so I was waaaaaay overdue.  I just finished doing that and the back-up worked fine.

Next I'm going to do a "Restore Point" for my Windows PC.  That's something I always have in the back of my mind, but don't usually take the time to do.  Everything is working great on my computer right now, so this is a good time to do the restore.  If things start not working they way they should in the future, I'll be able to go back to today's computer system and restore everything back to this point.

Don't forget to back up your blog and also set a restore point for your computer from time to time.  Luckily I also have a few other back-ups of my documents and files in case my computer crashes, like it did while I was in Vacaville in February.  I lost my programs, but I own most of what I had, or had free programs, and was able to recreate the old computer pretty well.

Then I'll get down my printer, set it up (hopefully it will work) and print out some birthday cards for my grandkids.

It's going to be a "computer day." My favorite kind of day.

People have asked me how I put the copyright line on the bottom of my photos.  Well, I'd guess there are a lot of different ways to do it, and I think Picasa has an easy way of inserting a copyright line in your photos, but I don't use Picasa, so I'm not sure.  You can check that out if that's the program you use for your photos.  I use a program called Serif CraftArtist Professional 2, which I downloaded from the Internet years ago.  I had the first version which is no longer available (Daisy Trail Scrapbook Artist); CraftArtist is the current program Serif offers.  You can get a free program that does a lot of things, which is what I did in the beginning, then I bought the full program so I would have all the bells and whistles.

I use CraftArtist for digital scrap booking, greeting cards, Christmas cards, some photo manipulation when needed, copyright lines on my published photos, and lots of other things. I think I've posted about this program before, most of the silly graphics that I post were made in that program.  They have around 50 free digital kits available to download and use in the program, and you can also import any element or photo.  I've found it works for anything I need.

If you are interested in the free program to see what it's like, click on this link.  It will take you to the Daisy Trail website where the free program and kits are available.  I used the freebie for a long time before I broke down and spent money on the full version.

Here's the birthday card I've made for my youngest grandson using CraftArtist - I'm printing it today and mailing it in Deming on Thursday:

Front of card

Inside of card - folded in the middle

Back of card

Birthday cards are really fun to make for my GrandKiddles - those are the only ones I make, except for my Dad - I send him a homemade card every year, too.  Sometimes I have great ideas and the creative process goes fast, other times I make more than one before I'm happy with the final product.  I also have issues with my printer - it doesn't seem to like being on the road, and stored away.  In my condo I used my printer frequently and it always worked fine, but since I've been traveling, not so much.  I hope my birthday cards print out all right today - then they will be ready to mail.

I'm afraid this year Graydin's card, and also Drew's - his birthday is a day after Graydin's - might be late. I'm mailing them Thursday, so I'm not sure they will be on time.

I have to say, I'm getting used to this larger blog post format and photos and I think I really like it.  At first it looked too big and the photos looked huge, but after working with it and viewing the posts for a day or so,  I like it.  Thanks for your feedback, I'm glad you like it too!

Here are a couple of pics from last night's sunset:

It's amazing how the colors change to a bright orange when I zoom to a close-up.

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

Rockhounding... results

POST 2 OF 2 FOR TODAY

Well, here are some photos of what I was looking for:

Aren't they beautiful?   These are actually photos from the Visitor's Center.  They have a lot of rocks on display, and whole as well as opened Thunder Eggs.  The third photo was a HUGE geode that was found by accident when someone was out in the fields with a large piece of machinery.  It ran over the geode, cracking it up, and the piece in the VC is only a part of the whole thing.

I was looking for a totally different rock - more of an egg shaped, light colored rock, like a chicken's egg.  This is what the Thunder Eggs look like from the outside. The first photo is a rather large one, and the second one was about the size of an orange.

This came from Rockhound State Park and is representative of the geodes here.

This Thunder Egg is from another place, and looks different from the ones found here.

So...  Jeanne suggested that I walk down to the Visitor's Center to see what they actually look like - that way I'd know what I'm looking for.  Thank you for that suggestion, Jeanne!  It's so obvious, I should have thought of it before we went looking for Thunder Eggs yesterday.  While we were there I took some photos and asked lots of questions about opening the rocks.  I left for camp, excited about opening the rocks to see what was inside.

I had one that might have been a Thunder Egg - it was the closest rock I had, and I was going to crack open that one first.  This is it:

My "Thunder Egg?"

Well, I took my rocks outside and first put them on a large flat rock by our door.  There were some depressions that worked perfectly to hold the rock on place.  I hit it as hard as I could with my hammer.  About broke my eardrums, but the rock didn't split.  I went inside and got some earplugs and tried again. Nothing. I put my screwdriver firmly on the rock and hit it's handle as hard as I could.  Nothing.  Whew, what a bust!

So I took them over to the picnic table which was higher and would give me better leverage.  Again, with and without the screwdriver, and with and without a towel covering the rock.  Yes! A small piece of the end of the rock came off.  Hummm.

 
It looked kind of interesting, but not like a geode.  I needed a larger piece - nearer the middle of the rock to see more of what was inside.  I think this poor rock is only a regular rock, though.  I tried and tried and couldn't break it up more.  I put it on the concrete pad with and without the screwdriver and towel, and... nothing.  Well, my friend Pete told me to get a really good break, I should have a saw - I guess a special kind of saw - to get a good clean, smooth slice. My hammer just wasn't going to do it.

So I gave up.  Sorry, folks.  :(  I could tell from the colors and shapes that the rest of my rocks wouldn't be geodes, so I didn't even try to break them up. 

I'm going to need to find someone that has either the right tools or more strength than I have before I try to crack open any more rocks.  In the meantime, following are a couple of really pretty rocks that are in the VC.  

And so ends the Thunder Egg saga.  Disappointing, but another adventure, and another learning experience.  And I'm going to keep looking.

The Volunteer in the VC did tell me the best place to go for Thunder Eggs, and Katie and I will be taking another walk to try to find some - now that we know where to go and what to look for.  I'm not hopeful, but the exercise is good for both of us and who knows?  We just might get lucky!

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

A little tinkering with Me and My Dog

POST 1 OF 2 FOR TODAY

I've been playing with the blog this morning - I am getting a little bored with the format.  I can't decide if I want to finally change the header, and I wanted to widen the post area and also the sidebars.  I've also been checking out different sizes and colors and I've enlarged the photos.

I'd love comments on whether the posts are loading at the same rate, or if these changes are slowing things down.  And are these large photos coming in as clear as they did before? I'm not done tinkering yet, but wanted to see how things were going so far.

Also, remember that if the text is hard to read on any of the blogs you follow, just press the Control and + key at the same time, and it will enlarge things for you.  I always keep mine a little enlarged so I have an easier time reading the blogs with smaller text.

I spied a pair of House Finches sitting on a branch. Aren't they pretty?

Female and Male House Finch

Male House Finch in flight - one of those lucky shots.  :)

I have my hammer and screwdriver ready to start smacking away at the rocks.  I'll post later today about that...

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!  :)