A postponement

In last night’s post, I stated that I would post the first part of my top ten adventures in 2010 tonight.  Well, that just isn’t going to happen, people.  :)  It was a long work day for me today, and as AL suggested today in his post, it is best to be mentally awake when you’re composing for your blog.  So, I think it will be a few days before I can put those posts together.

In the meantime, I’ll just ramble on a bit about today.  It was bird survey day, and I was ready!  When I arrived at the first count location, I was shocked to see that the road in front of me had disappeared!  In it’s place was a long, muddy, brand new levy with a huge John Deere tractor making it’s way through the muck and mire.   There were actually several of those behemoths working the area.  I was so discombobulated that I didn’t even think to take any pictures of this predicament.  There are three more count spots that I normally drive to along the road that used to be there.  What a dilemma.  I decided there was no way I was going to try to drive the suburban into that mess.  All that machinery churning around also meant that there weren’t very many birds in the first count area either.  :(

So, I could only do four of the seven stops this morning, and I had minor issues at two of those.  Ranchers are allowed to graze cattle on certain sections of the refuge, and one of my sites had a herd milling around when I arrived.  If you remember from last week, I have to walk a transit at each site, and I wasn’t crazy about doing battle with the cattle.  It’s usually cows that I encounter, but there was a big bull amongst them this morning.  Well, I gave it my all and headed out waving my arms and telling them to move on.  I thought there might be a stand off, but then they suddenly all turned and headed for the hills! (not that there are any hills to head for here:))  I counted the few birds that they flushed as they made their exit, but it was a little dicey tip toeing through the cow pies.  :)

As I arrived at my last site, and began the sitting still for five minutes scanning the area count, a huge diesel dump truck pulled up behind me.  The driver got out (revealing a huge plumber’s crack as he climbed out) and wanted to know if I was the big honcho of the refuge.  I told him no, I’m just doing a bird count.  He then went on a real chin flap about ducks and such; gave me his business card, and told me to call him if I ever needed a big load of dirt!  Alrighty then!  I’ll certainly keep that in mind, and thanks for chasing off any birds I might have counted with your big noisy truck.  I had to chuckle about that.  I guessed it was just going to be one of those mornings.  :)

A disappearing road, a bovine encounter, and an offer of a huge truck load of dirt… I just love this lifestyle!

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy