Foovay’s Cauldron

Posts Tagged ‘nature’

This little cutie is a Cassin’s Kingbird. They show up in early spring here and stay until – well, they’re still here. Their numbers seem to increase until a certain point in the summer, and then gradually decrease until we don’t have any by winter. They are insect eaters, so that makes perfect sense – they are without a doubt following their food.

We have quite a few of the Western Kingbirds as well – but they seem to arrive later and leave much earlier. Since we have been here – almost exactly three years now – I’ve seen exactly one Eastern Kingbird.

I’ve moved from a place where I used to see Eastern Kingbirds all the time, to a place where Western Kingbirds, and Cassin’s are the rule. Instead of Mourning Doves, we have White-Winged and ridiculous numbers of Eurasian Ring Necked Doves. (We do get a few of the Mourning Doves during migration – I saw one about a week ago – I miss them). The Fox Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos are just passing through and are several shades darker in color here. OTH I saw a post the other day at another blog saying they just got their White Crowned Sparrows back but they are further north and higher up than we are. We have them year round – although more it seems as it gets cooler. We also have the striking Black Throated Sparrows year round. Did you know they have the sweetest little song? I had never seen either of these birds before we came out south and west.

Instead of BobWhite Quail we have both Cottontops (Scaled Quail) and Gambels. Since I think the latter two are incredibly cute I’m happy with that exchange. They look like little wind up toys as they zip here and there, their little headdresses bobbing merrily. We still have RedTailed Hawks, although they are a little different color here – a bit faded looking. As winter goes on though – the bird of prey list will get longer and longer with some really exciting possibles like Gyrfalcons and Golden Eagles. Not to mention the Great Horned Owl who is already making his presence known.

I’ve traded rare and shy White-Tailed Deer for fairly common Mule Deer, Pronghorn Antelope, and the occasional Oryx. Red fox for Grey and Desert Fox. Pretty as the Red Fox is – Grey Fox can climb a tree like a cat (I’ve seen it!) and the rare sighting of the delicately pretty Desert Fox is a treat indeed. I’ve finally caught two glimpses of the Bobcat, and I have not left my River otters, racoons, or Beaver behind – but I’ve also gained Ring Tailed Cats, and Badger. Lots more of the attractive striped skunks with a sprinkling of the spotted skunks! Squirrels have gone from red tree dwellers to silver and black rock dwellers. Meanwhile I’ve gained darling spotted ground squirrels and the cute Kangaroo rats who remind me so much of pet gerbils grown large. Ground hogs are still with me, too. And for all I’ve gained, I do seem to have lost Muskrats but it may be that I just haven’t not seen them.

Another favorite I miss is the Great Blue Heron. About this time of year I will see one or two, either on the Rio Grande or maybe down here on our little lake. With any luck, I’ll see a flock of Coots on the lake at some point, and various visiting sandpipers including my old pal the Killdeer who used to be almost a daily feature of my life.

Yep, there are a lot of differences in the nature watching to be had from a green, wet, windy riverside in Oklahoma to the high Chihuahua desert. Viva la difference!

The last two days we have had a very sick cow dog having seizures every few hours. Totally scary. As of this morning, Klyde seems to be just fine. It’s been quite an experience – and no sleep for me or Third for two days. (We think he’s been poisoned)

I will say, I paid a big $5 from Paypal to  ask the vet a question here and Dr. Marie was very nice, very helpful, very kind and did not do any of the guilt tripping over us not being able to take him to a vet. I can’t say enough good about her. She replied within half an hour, too. So – if you ever have a question you really need a veterinarian for – she’s the one. She’s on Twitter, too. @AskAVetQuestion.

That said – I had to share a typical sleepless morning on the ranch. Klyde was pacing and whining and whining and pacing and pacing and whining. Then Thirds phone rings. And rings. And rings. He mumbles something about “I am not going to town today.” It stops. It starts again. Klyde paces and whines and paces and whines.

So although it was early (I try to keep morning feed at 10 am here, but since I was up the last two days it’s been 7 am) I went out to feed. Both dogs go with me which is great because Klyde has not felt up to going out to feed for a couple of days. I’m tired but trying very very hard to be patient.

First thing I notice is the mule is gone. GONE. Nowhere to be seen. The mare is hung up in the fence. The old cowpony is upset and pacing and whinnying.

I go on into the barn to get their hay (the mare has a tendency to extricate herself when food is in the offing without any help) and notice I am down to one upset barn cat (I have two..). Klyde, whose seperation anxiety is now off the scale after his illness, tries to follow me into the barn and I raise my voice and tell him “no”. He vanishes.

I get the hay and go toss it. By the time I’ve walked down the fence to drop the second pile, I hear my other cat. I walk around trying to find her. She is up a power pole, standing on the transformer of a power line. There is nothing, NOTHING on this ranch that will reach that high.

I turn to go back to the barn and the mule has traded off his invisibility cloak – he is now in my back pocket (Klyde took the cloak, more on that in a minute). Follows me to the first gate. This mooseheaded mule bashes gates with his head to knock them down and he’s got this one so bent up I cannot get it open to let him in. I go to the second gate – same thing. I cuss him. Told him he’ll have to wait, I’m going to go get the mare out of the fence.

I step over the fence in a spot I usually go through and dipshit mule tries to follow.

I am 5 feet tall and weight about 130. The mule is about 18 hands high (six feet at the shoulder) and weights about a half ton. He doesn’t fit through where I do. He gets caught. He tears the entire section of fence down behind me. The good news is he is now in the pen.

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered the mare has literally woven one hind leg through the field wire and is well and truly caught. I mash and push the wire down to her ankle and she lifts her foot and starts jerking. I take the foot to try and help her unweave herself and she twists around and crushes my hand and damn near kicks me in the head. I get my hand loose and back up a step and cuss her.

Well! She says. Then casually unweaves herself and walks over to eat…

So I go back to the barn, get the chickens breakfast and thank goodness they, at least, are all present, accounted for, and doing what chickens do.

I walk back up to the house and – no dogs. I call and call and here comes Harry full tilt boogie and goes in the house – but no Klyde. I walk around the barns and house looking for him. I’m afraid now he flopped over and had a seizure and I cannot see him because he is down.

So I go in, tell hubby my tale of woe. He gets dressed, gets his boots on, I get my boots on as I now expect to be walking knee deep in brush in snake country searching for a down dog.

Open the door.

Klyde is on the porch.

But runs off because he is now 3x more spooky than he has been for a year. Both of us eventually have to get off the porch and leave the door open and herd the herding dog inside.

I am having a beer for breakfast, anyone else want one?

I love living on the ranch. I love our animals. Really.

The cat is still on the pole.

Update at Noon:

I’m on my second beer.

Hubby looks out the window and the cat is not on the pole.

THIS is on the pole:

Hubby goes out to get some good photos of this Very Large Hawk.

Fortunately:

The pole sitting cat is in the barn.

I check the number of beers left in the refrigerator.

“My sister is an idiot”

I went to visit I and the Bird blog carnival at Madras Ramblings this afternoon. The carnival is well worth a visit. Ambika did a beautiful job with poetry and photographs to grace the carnival.

However, one of the first blogs I chose to visit is Walk the Wilderness who was featured with some photos of the Streaked Weaver. From there it was off to see the photos of the Dholes, and then the Leopards, and then…and I’ve said “WOW” at least three or four times. I’ve bookmarked some pages to use to draw some coloring pages and clip art of the amazing animals he has captured. I’ve followed it, even though it is a blogspot blog and I don’t usually bother with them since I can’t get them into my Google reader where I can see them daily. Walk the Wilderness is one stunning nature photography blog. Very much worth your time to go visit – and give yourself some time because you’ll find one post after another that you just have to read and see the photos!

We got a mention in the carnival – thank you Amika – and don’t forget I get to host it on October 1st. That will be fun.

It started raining here yesterday evening and hasn’t stopped since. The weather report says half an inch – but they measure in town and not infrequently the weather out here on the Jornada is completely different. I’ll be we have had AT LEAST one inch. AT LEAST. Back before the road was paved we would have been rained in. Never mind getting over Ash Canyon. Now we have pavement out front and a spiffy new bridge over Ash Canyon. So everyone is at work and I have all kinds of peace and quiet – for another hour or so.

Yesterday I managed to procrastinate about putting the Bella Sara cards on eBay by putting up a new lens at Squidoo – Free Printable Halloween Coloring Pages and updating the Free Coloring Pages Blog a bit while I was at it.

Today I went to list the Bella Sara cards and my computer swore up and down that I don’t have a scanner attached. So I’m working on putting my Halloween and Samhain clip art back online, and from there will get to work on some Halloween coloring pages, and updating my other Halloween Squidoo lens, I love Halloween – Samhain.

Oh yeah, I updated Living with a deaf cat to add a couple of links to some new articles I found on the subject.

I am up to 50 Squidoo lenses again! So I’ll probably be doing a lot of updating there for the next couple of weeks. Yes, I’ve applied to be a Giant Squid again. Wish me luck!

Which means I have lots of work I really ought to be doing – along with a good bit of housework, too. We do seem to have resolved Mr. Wee Wee Mouses’ forays into the kitchen cabinet and towel cabinet – but I need to wash the towels one last time. BTW if you got that email that said that Bounce dryer sheets will repel mice – I’ve got to say that in our experience, the mouse laughed as he pooped on them, too.

Laters!

Summer

Another day of many little things that hopefully will someday add up to a real income. The menfolk here are not pushing me to get another job – if anything quite the opposite. Everyone seems to like having me home. I like it, too – but I don’t like this barely scraping along and every minor event becomes a financial disaster sort of thing. I’d be really happy to find a nice little part-time painless job, two or maybe three days a week. Leaving me plenty of time and energy to play about here

We had a Cactus Wren visit this morning. She even knocked on the window to say “hi”. Or maybe she was chasing flies that were (unfortunately) on THIS side of the window! She knocked so loud the dogs even ran and barked at her as if she were a human visitor. I have to admit I was still too dozy to go find the camera and try for a photo. Maybe she’ll drop by again tomorrow.

I think we have gotten rid of the rodent problem. Now I need to put all those pots and pans and things back in the bottom drawers and cabinets. Sigh. And rewash all the towels yet AGAIN since Mr. Wee Wee Rodent has been back in on them before we got his mess cleaned up and the spot he was getting in blocked off. At least he didn’t seem to have a nest IN the house so we hope this takes care of him.

Of course, today I discovered a can of evaporated milk had exploded on the shelf. The smell was quite indescribable. *shudder* So that was quite a clean up. And I have laundry to catch up, too. You can sure tell I was working a lot of hours away from home.

I ran onto a link to this wonderful video of Bobby McFerrin (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) showing some brain surgeons a thing or two. What I love is how everyone, no matter their country or language – understands this.

I added a couple of new coloring pages – yet another jumping pony (I love drawing them and the kids seem to love to color them) and a couple of young eagles having a disagreement.

The eagles came from a photo on the Discovery.com website. The posturing is so obvious I just couldn’t resist. I also colored it and will enter it into the wildlife contest tomorrow over at A Singular Creation. I also added it into the Birds of Prey free clipart page. Here’s the colored version:

I also got the free clip art blog up and running so I can post updates when I add new art and get the old sections up and running again, too.

And I am really excited to announce that I will be hosting the I and the Bird Carnival October 1st edition! With one thing and another I haven’t gotten to participate in it for a long time – and it’s my favorite blog carnival! I am really looking forward to it!

Hubby just handed me a grilled cheese sandwich – YUM. I hear thunder outside, too. It is officially fall around here – turning off quite chilly and getting a lot of moisture – finally. So I’m off to have some dinner and then go feed the chickens their dinner.

Later tonight I think I’m finally going to get it together and get some of my Bella Sara cards up on eBay. I was so upset to see our local Alco has discontinued carrying them completely. Then voila’ the Walmart suddenly had a FEW, just a FEW of the Royals packs (and now I have at least some of them). All in all, looks like I’m going to be ordering my Bella Sara cards online from now on. Which sort of takes some of the fun out of it. They are my little indulgence if I am in town for some business, and have $3 left and have “been good” (got my important stuff done) then I get to have a pack or two of Bella Sara cards. I won’t do that if I’m ordering online – shipping being what it is.

Well, gotta go before my sandwich gets cold!

Migration season is so much fun here. I get to see old pals who live in the more temperate clime of Tulsa, OK but who drop by for a visit at our new home here in New Mexico a couple times a year. Like this Red-Breasted Nuthatch. He’s the first one I’ve seen here on the ranch. According to my bird book he could be just migrating, or he may winter over. I’d love to have his cheery company all winter.

He was sure having a busy time this morning. He was flying into the big live pine tree by the back door and picking loose some pine nuts and dropping them on the ground. Then flying down to the ground and picking up the nut which he then carried up the dead pine tree right in front of the kitchen window. He stuffed a few into the bark of the tree, and took a few up into the branches where he cracked and ate them. And then back to the live tree to pry some more pine nuts loose.

James got the photos, of course. I apparently took about ten – with the lens cap on or something *rolling eyes* I have big plans to get some work done today – both online and on the house. It’s turned off cold and all the “vermin” have decided it would be much cozier in the human house. Notice how cute little deer mice go from “critters” to “vermin” once they move into the kitchen.

I wouldn’t mind actually. I’d cohabitate to some extent. But nesting and peeing and pooping in the towel cabinet in the bathroom – and doing the same in the silverware drawer – that’s just unacceptable. I finally broke down and bought a live trap yesterday. You wouldn’t know that I already (should) have two live traps – one big fat white kitty (Pearlie doesn’t muss her paws) and a terrier (Harry doesn’t even bother staring at the cabinet any more). Sigh.

Laters!

Summer Fey Foovay

P.S. Red-Breasted Nuthatch coloring page added
Red-breasted Nuthatch added to the free clipart

Well we certainly had an exciting visitor this morning. I was barely awake, just getting dressed to go out and feed, when I glanced out the window and saw what was clearly a bird of prey doing the do-si-do on top of my chicken pen!

I told the hubby to grab his camera and hurriedly finished dressing to get outside before the situation deteriorated – to put it mildly. The rooster was NOT AMUSED and was raising all kinds of hell. At first I thought this was a falcon from his size and the long tail – but as we got closer (and he allowed us to get surprisingly close) I decided it seemed to be a very young hawk.

When we got inside we dug through the bird books. We’ve concluded he was a juvenile Sharp Shinned Hawk – described in my book as a “fiesty, bird eating hawk”. Yep – feisty is a good description of the way he was jumping up and down on the top of my chicken coop, trying to force his way in. However, I don’t think he was actually after my chickens. Even the hens are bigger than he is. Rooster Sunny would have given him quite a battle, I have no doubt. I think THIS was his original target…

One of the many Eurasian ring-necked doves that regularly drop by to steal chicken feed and nest in our trees. Now and then one actually gets into the chicken pen. I think this guy probably dove in on purpose to avoid the hawk – and then found himself most uncomfortably trapped while the hawk tried to find a way in.

Looks like migration season has started here. There was a yellow-headed blackbird in the chicken pen earlier this week and the Scaled Quail have gathered themselves into one large flock for the winter. In the summer they run around in small family groups. We get all kinds of birds of prey during migration and also during the winter when the high desert remains more hospitable than the surrounding mountains. The hubby (who took these photos) has a new camera to play with, so I will probably have lots of wild bird photos to share.

As long as he was out there this morning, he also got a photo of one of the ravens who frequent the ranch.

A much larger hawk landed on a power pole over at the neighboring ranch. Although the new camera has a much better zoom than the old one – we still couldn’t get a good enough photo for identification. It is also a little overcast today, so the lighting doesn’t help. I suspect this is a Swainsons – just because there has been a Swainsons that sits on this pole for the last couple years we’ve been here.

I feel as if I missed the entire spring and summer on the ranch. I had that job with those crazy hours, and then all the ruckus when my roomie was ill. So I am really looking forward to bird watching this migration season. Get myself back in sync with my beloved desert.

Right now, my focus is the 3 Day Novel over Labor Day weekend. Just two more days to prepare and finish the requisite background and research for my novel. My case of cold feet has traveled all the way up to the tips of my fingers and roots of my hair! I’m headed out now to go to town and do a little grocery shopping – lots of Red Bull, coffee, and finger food.

***deep breath**** I can do this…