Birdwatching

Good morning, my friends. Now that our slide is working properly, it feels as if we've really entered vacation mode. Of course, when you're retired, you never really get a vacation. Retirement is a full time job. Sometimes, though, it's more worry free than other times. With the slide giving us problems starting on the second day, we were finally able to relax yesterday and enjoy some peace of mind along with our peaceful surroundings.

It was a lovely morning. We wore light jackets, but ended up tying them around our waists for the second half of our walk. Here are some things we saw along the way. There are two "lakes" (more like ponds) here. There's also a creek running behind our own rig. The first lake is just a few steps from our door. And although this place is called "Champagne Lakes RV Resort," I can assure you these lakes are not filled with champagne.

As we walked along, I noticed this Great Blue Heron standing straight and tall. I stood back from him and zoomed in for this picture. I worried I'd scare him away if I got too close.

And then, I kept snapping pictures of him as I approached.

Until I was right beside him. I like how the sun is shining through the tip of his beak in the image below.

Off to his left were these little white ducks. 

They immediately put me in mind of a song my dad used to sing to me when I was a little girl. 

There's a little white duck

Sitting in the water

A little white duck

Doing what he oughter

And if that song is new to you, you can hear Burl Ives sing it right here. (Please tell me you're old enough to remember Burl Ives.)

Okay, and walking on, we came to this gang of cormorants. My friend Judy tells me these are Double-breasted Cormorants.

This was another one where I kept my distance and kept shooting as I got closer.

Hey look, you guys...it's the paparazzi!

Just be cool. Maybe she'll go away. 

Also, a Great Egret.

As we walked back, we were sure to read all the signs. They left out the "No Having Fun" sign. And, maybe it's just me, but doesn't $12 per day for "catch and release" fishing seem exorbitant? You could take your $12 to the grocery store and get yourself something good to eat.

Here's a look at the second lake. 

There's another cormorant.

I was waiting for the duck armada to swim out from behind the tree.

My friend, Judy, tells me these are "Ring-necked Ducks."

Walking on, I noticed whatever this is growing, seemingly, from solid rock.

Here's some ice plant. This is ubiquitous in Southern California. 

There are many RV's here that are clearly permanent residences. Some of the folks living here have set up nice potted gardens for themselves. One of our nearer neighbors has some blooming things. I noticed this blooming geranium.

My phone tells me this next one is "Rock Purslane."

And now that the slide is repaired and the rain has stopped, we hung up our bird feeders yesterday. So far, we haven't seen any visiting birds; however, we did see a hummingbird a few days ago before we'd hung the feeders. I'm hoping they'll find the feeders before we leave here in a few weeks.

Before we headed out on our walk yesterday, I stitched Raggedy Anne's hair. A girl can't go out with her hair half done, can she?

When we got back, I helped her put on her face.

There's still much to do on this one, and that's where I'll start next.

Mike is meeting up with a friend for a bike ride today, and so I'll have the place to myself for a while. It's a perfect time to set up my sewing machine and get back to my sewing. I'm hoping to make good progress on my Nordic Star table runner today. I have the parts of the stars sewn together, and now I can start sewing them into stars. There will be four stars in this runner.

Probably, I'll get out for another walk. As I'm sitting here, I can see birds hippy-hopping all around the ground outside. Smitty has his eye on them. Seeing something like that makes him flatten his ears.

Probably I'll get him out for a walk too. It's going to be a good day. I'm going to do only what I want to do and not a single thing more. How about you? I hope you have an unencumbered day ahead of you too.