It’s a given…

…that when you wash your rig and all the windows, it has to rain the next day!  :) (even if you're in the desert in summer)  So it was one of those overcast, dreary days where I don’t feel bad at all about doing absolutely nothing productive. 
It’s been a good day for ducks!  The pictures tonight are from my trip on the auto tour route on Thursday.  These young mallards with mom in the back (with the darker beak) were leisurely dabbling around for goodies in one of the ponds. 
As I made my way down the gravel road, I was surprised to come upon this cowpoke moving the doggies along.  I had to stop and watch for a few moments.  Funny thing was, they never moved!  Turns out they were life size silhouettes placed in a field across one of the marshy lakes.  All of those black dots in the water are ducks.  I had a little fun working with this photo in Picasa 3 using the retouch button.  There was an electric pole on the left that went right through the first cow’s head.  Thanks to RICK, I was able to give this a try.  I still need a little practice, but I’m getting there.  :)
To me, this looked like snow covered fir trees on a mountain.  What it really is, though, is the early morning light reflecting off the water onto 8” high marsh vegetation.
If you look closely, you can see a juvenile common moorhen skulking through the marsh.  I’m thinking I’m going to find a lot of little treasures like this on this refuge.  :)

Tom and Sue are the other volunteers that are here right now, and they work the weekends.  When they returned, in the rain, this afternoon, they had a surprise for me.  How nice of them to deliver my mail.  No, it was not the long awaited license plates from South Dakota.  It was something better than that.  A new friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, had hand made me a cover for my Blue Ox toad hitch arms.  Some of you might not understand why I would be so excited about that.  :)  Well, let me tell you all about it.  Since I’ve had a toad for the last three years, every time I arrive somewhere, I have to take off the tow hitch and store it somewhere (trunk of the car) to keep it out of the weather.  That sucker is not light, and I have occasionally wrenched my back removing it and moving it.  Now, with this lovely weatherproof “sock”, I don’t have to remove the hitch and arms!  Hallelujah!  It sure did seem to get heavier as the years have rolled by.  :)  Thanks, friend, you really perked up a dreary day!!

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