Settling in at Imperial

It’s taken me several days to get all set up on my site at Imperial.  Temps in the triple digits since my arrival have limited my outside work to early morning.  There’s really no need to rush, so I’m taking my time.  I’m learning where things are located, and some do’s and don’ts.  For example, no one drinks the water that comes out of the water hook up.  There’s a reverse osmosis machine in the volunteer building where drinking water can be obtained.  I’ve got a two gallon jug with a spigot from my days at Anahuac, so that’s not a problem.  My only complaint about that is that it’s a small unit, so I can’t even fill up two gallons at a time.

There are two washers and dryers in the building, so I’ve done several loads of laundry.  Fellow volunteer Jay, helped me wash the car.  It was a mess after that three miles of dusty bumpy entrance road drive.  There’s a power wash station down in the maintenance area.  I’ve also located the dumpster and the recycle bins.  Remembering that tooth jarring drive, I also discovered it broke one of my drawer latches, so that will have to be replaced before I leave. 

Having spent an inordinate amount of time inside the rig because of the high temps the last few days hasn’t meant I haven’t seen anything interesting.  As I sit at my booth table while on the computer, I have quite the view out the big window by it  Yesterday I watched this red-tailed hawk steal a catch from a smaller hawk.  The pics aren’t very good, but it was quite dramatic as the red-tail made the other hawk drop its prey, and then stole it and flew off with it.

The ground around here is like cement, so yesterday I had the brilliant idea to strap one of my bird feeder poles to the electrical post with zip ties.  I went inside to juice up the hummingbird feeder, and believe it or not, I had a hummer zoom in within 30 seconds!

By this morning, I had three hummers visiting.  I’ve identified them as Anna’s hummingbirds.  Having spent almost all of my years in the east, I’m on a real learning curve to figure out the birds of the west.  I’m looking forward to the challenge.

Tonight, I even found this female phainopepla nearby as I sat outside with Emma.  I’ll be keeping myself busy trying to get much better pictures of my new avian friends.

Tomorrow the plan is to head into Yuma for the opening day of the Yuma Farmers Market.  It’s located in the Yuma Quartermaster Depot State Park.  I’ve never been there before.  Some history and fresh vegies are on the horizon. 

                                                                                THE END!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy