The cabin

Here I am.  The trip up wasn’t bad, but there was a lot of traffic.  That was expected since it is the long weekend.  Once everything was unpacked, I started a fire outside in the pit and sat outside until 10 PM.  NO MOSQUITOES!!!!!!  It was very quiet except for the sound of coyotes howling – not that far away, either.  Sometime during the night the rain moved in.  I heard thunder at one point.  I stayed in bed until 8 AM (unusual for me).  But I could hear it raining and I thought I might just as well stay put.  But as the morning wore on, things started to clear up.  The sun is actually trying to break thru right now.  And the forecast for tomorrow is partly sunny.  Doesn’t sound bad.

I slipped into town this morning and bought a little bird seed at the bulk food store.  See if I can attract any birds to the feeder before I head home on Monday.

 

 

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Music and the Deck

This is a song by Todd Snider – Old Friends

 

 

This is a song by Robert Earl Keen – Corpus Christie Bay

 

 

What a difference between yesterday and today.  Hot and humid yesterday to the point where I did not even want to go outside, while today the humidity has disappeared and the temperature has dropped to the point where it is almost (not quite) cool.  There is a breeze and it feels good.

I have been sitting out on the deck since getting up,  Coffee, toast, yogurt (wish it was coffee yogurt).

A Gray Catbird was hopping along the top of the fence, “meowing”.  A Black-capped Chickadee flew into in the honeysuckle busy and then promptly dropped out of sight.  A Painted Lady butterfly landed on the fence and spread its wings to soak up some of the sun’s rays.  Two young robins flew and landed on the fence.  Once I moved, they took and flew to who knows where.  A Brown Thrasher flew out across the marsh.  American Goldfinches keep circling around overhead.  A hummingbird zoomed in out of nowhere and checked out my feeders.  This made me get up and clean the feeders (has not been done in a while), refill with fresh nectar and hang them back up for the hummers.

 

Butterfly Bush

At the moment, there is a Viceroy and 3 Milbert Tortoiseshell’s on my Butterfly Bush.

 

Nice summer day

This morning I tackled vacuuming the upstairs.  The ground in this vicinity is mostly sand.  And when I walk Abby in the morning, her hair gets wet from the tall grass and weeds.  Then she picks up sand due to the wet hair and guess where it all ends up.  In the house.  You can feel it when you walk on the tile and wood flooring.  So vacuuming is a fairly frequent activity here.

After lunch I jumped in the van and went for a ride.  I headed south and a little west of Strathroy, sticking to the back roads for the most part.  I crossed over Highway 401, drove thru Dutton and then turned west in Wallacetown onto Highway 3 (the Talbot Line).  I followed this for a bit and then after a couple of miles, I turned south on McKillop Road to the E.M Warwick Conservation Area.  This conservation area runs right down to the Lake Erie shoreline.  This 14 hectare property is comprised of wooded Carolinian forests and ravines.  There are streams and open spaces.  I love this place.  Not sure what draws me here.  It seems to have a lot of potential.  But I did not see much in the way of butterflies.  Hummingbirds were busy working over the abundant yellow flowers along the trail.

This is the first time I have been there this year.  It felt good.  Like seeing an old friend.  I walked down to the cliffside and looked down on the water.  Quite a ways down.

I’ll be back.  Probably in another month when the leaves start to turn.

For some reason, I have a craving for cabbage rolls.

 

 

 

 

 

Just another shot of my Butterfly Bush

With a nice-looking Eastern Swallow-tail butterfly

And just for the heck of it, here is a video I shot while staying at Fun N Sun in San Benito earlier this year:

I hope you enjoyed these.

 

 

 

Transportation

This was our mode of transportation for the field trips at the Arizona Bird and Wildlife Festival

 

Bit of a bust

Today was a bit of a bust.  I drove all the way down to Miller Canyon to look for the Spotted Owl and when I got there it started to rain.  A heavy rain.  So I gave that up and spent the rest of the morning just driving around hoping that something would look inviting.  But the weather was just not good.  It looked like off in the distance that it might be nice here, so I headed back to Tucson.  But went to Sweetwater Wetlands.  Not sure how it got that name.  Its a desert.  I didn’t see any water.  I did see a Coachwhip Snake.  That was neat.  The sky got real dark and I could see lightening heading my way, so I went back to the car and drove over to the Desert Museum.  I spent a couple of hours wandering around there.  There was a hummingbird aviary there.  You walk into an enclosure full of real hummingbirds.  They must be used to people because they would sometimes land on a branch as close as 12 inches away.

Last night here.