A purge, pictures, and procrastination

The problems last night with Blogger and pictures continued again this morning, but seems to be cleared up for tonight.  I have slowly been going through the multiple set of drawers that I have in the front of the rig instead of the passenger's seat.  I had that seat pulled out before I hit the road fulltime, and bought three plastic sets of drawers to fit perfectly in that space.  There's lots of stuff in those drawers that I haven't used much or at all, so I decided it was time for a purge.  If I haven't used it in the last four years, chances are I won't miss it!  I'll continue to work on another drawer or two this evening.

Following are the pictures that I hoped to post last night of visitors to the Hard Rock Bird Cafe...

A small flock of white-crowned sparrows moved in yesterday, and were still coming in tonight.

I enjoyed getting a few pics of the female black-chinned hummingbird at a location other than the feeder.

I guess she had an itch!  If you look closely, you can see her foot under her wing scratching away.

A male house finch showing off his vibrant colors.

I have really gotten to know and appreciate the lark sparrows this spring.  Around here, it's one of those species that once you see the first one, then you see them everywhere.  :)   Blogger is messing with my alignment tonight, but at least I can upload pictures...so far.  :( 

After heading to Marble Falls and Liberty Hill to run some errands late this afternoon, I stopped in the office early this afternoon to pick up the key for the van for tomorrow's tour.  I ran into Rob, and he had a list of things he wanted me to do.  I said I'd take care of a couple of them, but declined the whole list.  I told him that after tomorrow's tour, I'm essentially done with this tour of duty.  I need most of Friday to get everything in order for my departure on Saturday.  I'll be well over 3,000 hours of volunteer time put in at National Wildlife Refuges.  Enough is enough for now! 

Early this evening, I decided to quit procrastinating and take care of pre-departure chores of checking the water levels in the three batteries and getting all six tires up to proper pressure levels.  Emma was outside on her tie out as I gathered the needed tools for these jobs.  I grabbed the tire gauge, kitchen baster, my beverage, and funnel and headed out the door.  Emma was giving off that unusual bark again, so I dropped everything and looked around.  Sure enough, about five feet out of her reach in the driveway was a visitor...

another diamond backed rattlesnake!   Since she couldn't reach it, I dashed inside for my camera.

If you double click on this photo, you can see that it has it's tongue out testing the air.

At the non-business end, I counted 12 rattles on this rattler!  It was a little under three feet long, and was stretched out just to the right of my car.

A close up of it's body shows how it got it's name.  Beautiful diamonds....It didn't curl up and rattle at us, but remained stretched out for close to 30 minutes!  Of course, I didn't get close enough to threaten it, either.  :)

If you click on this photo, I hope you'll see the blue-ish scales on it's head.  I had no idea that it would have these blue tinges.

As I concentrated on putting distilled water into a few of the battery cells, he silently slithered away.  I'm thinking I've had enough experiences getting up close and personal with a rattler!  :)

After finishing with the batteries, I forced myself to check the air pressure in the tires, and found that five of them needed a little boost of air.  I got the compressor out of storage and tried to set everything up.  I get so frustrated when I can't do things for myself.  :(  For some reason, I couldn't get the air hose attached to the compressor after twenty minutes of trying.  I finally had to go next door and ask Adrian for some help.  Even he struggled to get the hose attached.  I just wish I had the strength that I used to have.  Together, we got all the tires taken care of, and that is a real relief to me.  I truly enjoyed crossing those two chores off of my list!

I had planned to show you the latest batch of wildflowers that are gracing the roadsides in the Hill Country, but I think I'll save that for tomorrow.  As I write this, I'm being serenaded by several Chuck-wills-widows outside my window.  What a fine way to end this day!

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

A walk in the rain

I awoke to the calls of the Chuck-Will's-Widows.  These birds are nocturnal insect eaters with large flat heads, small bills, and enormous mouths.  They catch insects on the wing, and their name comes from the call they make.  They have just arrived in the last two nights, and were calling from everywhere around the rig.  Since I set the alarm for six, I took Emma out in the dark and we were surrounded by their loud calling.  We were also pretty wet by the time we returned to the rig as clouds and light rain moved in overnight.

Everyone showed up for the bird tour this morning despite the overcast and wet conditions.  I took the folks to the Victoria tract, but we got skunked!  There wasn't one golden-cheeked even singing in the murky conditions.  Okay, so we drove the 25 miles or so to the Russel tract, and after using up almost all of our time, I finally found a black-capped vireo, and everyone was able to get a look at it.  :)  Phew!  I didn't want to end the trip totally skunked, so I was relieved that this bird cooperated.  The folks today were a happy group and especially friendly.  It made for an enjoyable morning.

Emma and I spent most of the afternoon and evening indoors since there seems to be a constant drizzle out doors.  More rain and possible T-storms are forecast for tomorrow as well.  I have several errands to run in Cedar Park tomorrow, so I won't be bothered much by the weather.  I just hope it clears out of here for the festival over the weekend.

I did start my "getting ready to move on" lists today.  I've got about eight days to get everything accomplished so it won't be overwhelming if I work on it a little at a time.  My most dreaded chore is checking the air pressure in the tires.  I have an air compressor, but it is really heavy for me to move around.  I also struggle with the pressure gauge.  I just can't seem to get it seated properly on the tire valves to get an accurate reading without numerous tries.  Ugh!  I guess that's the only thing that I really hate about this lifestyle.  I wish there was some one else to do that chore.  :(

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