Coming home

As some of my long time readers know, my friend and fellow volunteer, Peggy, quilted this wall hanging for me last winter.  It is her rendition of a picture hanging in the laundry room of the Loners on Wheels (LoWs) park in Deming, New Mexico.  I had posted a picture of it last November while I was staying at the LoWs park, and she presented this to me while we were both volunteering at Balcones Canyonlands NWR in February.  It has a prominent place in my motorhome.  Anyway, I show it again tonight to emphasize how I feel about arriving to volunteer at one of the nation’s more than 500 National Wildlife Refuges…it’s like coming home. (and this refuge certainly feels like it’s a thousand miles from nowhere!  :))
By noon, today, I had the basic set up chores done.  I’m sure glad I made a trial run to the refuge in my car yesterday.  The shortest route (20 miles) turned out to be not so good for a rig pulling a toad, so I took the longer (50 mile) route this morning.  I’m happy to say I got the rig backed in on the first try, and, as you can see, the awning cooperated today!
There are six volunteer pads here, and across the way from my site are the two volunteer buildings.  The one on the right has two showers, and the one on the left has a common area, laundry, and full kitchen.  I’m thinking they know how to take care of their volunteers here.  :)

As the temperatures rose to the 90’s this afternoon, I did ten days worth of laundry and continued the finer points of setting up for an extended stay.  I also did battle with the mosquitoes and horse flies…this is a huge marsh area, you know.
There are only about six trees in the area, and I’m finding that they are prime daytime roosting sites for some nocturnal birds.  Mrs. J  was correct in her guess that these are Common Nighthawks.  They usually ply the skies for insects during the night, and sleep during the day.  I never thought I’d ever get a picture of them roosting.  I’ve only seen them before coursing through the skies at dusk.
I’m guessing that the adult is on the left, and the young of the year on the right.  I always thought they were a solid dark color with a white wing bar on each wing.  Their plumage is really quite striped and mottled.  All my banging around getting set up today didn’t bother them one bit!
There are also multitudes of these white butterflies skipping around from flower to flower around the RV sites.  I’m feeling pretty good about my stay here after only nine hours.  I think I’ll head out and take a better look at this refuge tomorrow.
                                                                      THE END! 

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