Hummingbird Update

The Man and His Mower

June 18 – It was nice to sleep in again. Bill was up early as usual but he let me sleep til I felt like getting up. While he rode up to the office on his bike to get our reservations, I made smoothies for breakfast. Then I got dressed and drove into Ignacio. I called Karen and we talked the whole way so my drive went really fast. It was good to hear her voice and catch up for a few minutes. My goal was to go to Wells Fargo Bank (the only bank in town) and get some papers for RWA notarized and drop in the Fed EX box just outside of the bank. As my luck would have it the person who was the notary was on break, and didn’t bring her notary in anyway, so I was a bit ticked. The teller told me there was a notary over at the Town of Ignacio office. So I walked over there and yes, there a notary and she indicated they sent a lot of people to them.

While I was in town I went to Mom’s Hidden Closet. It’s a tiny little shop with all kinds of things. There were a lot of holiday items, jewelry, stationary, t-shirts, books, just a varied array of items. I only got 2 used paperbacks and a roll of decorative packing tape. I stopped at the grocery for some produce they had on sale. Then I stopped at the post office in Arboles but still no Direct TV card.

When I got home it was close to lunch time so we just sat and had a beverage and rested a while. I picked up some tourist magazines that we looked at to get some ideas of places to go and things to see in the Four Corners area. We eventually got around to lunch, a sandwich and cottage cheese for Bill and a salad for me. I made a batch of hummingbird nectar and let it sit to cool.

I changed clothes and went out to weed some more. I was out for an hour and am just over half done. I carried a plastic bag and picked up a bag of trash along the way. The wind started the moment I got home so things were blown around from the sites and most people were out on the lake. Bill raked out a site and ran some errands on the mule. The large church group goes through a lot of toilet paper so he restocked the restrooms.

Helping my birds fill up

It was too windy for me to work on my grill shield project. I made a batch of molasses ginger cookie dough and put it in to chill, watered my plants and then we I filled the feeders and we sat out to watch the hummingbirds. I put Molly in her hut and Xena was on her chain and there we sat. At one time we counted 7 but with the wind so bad the poor things could barely light on the feeders. At one point I sat between the two feeders and steadied the big one with my left hand. They were a little leery at first but then they landed on it and Bill took some photos. I hope they turn out.

For dinner we had the pulled pork the church group brought over last night. They brought buns too. We only ate maybe a third of it with leftover potato pancakes, Waldorf salad and black beans. I always like getting dishes out of the fridge so I can see what is still in there.

After dinner we took Xena for a loop walk and then we rode our bikes to Rosa camp to borrow the toilet paper key and to talk to Barry, another volunteer, who said he’d help me put my window in. We kinda had a volunteer meeting as we were all outside talking for a while. We are all getting together on Saturday evening for our early 4th of July celebration in the meeting room by the laundry. The three couples are providing all of the meal but we invited the 3 single guys and Terry and his wife Carole. It should be a nice evening for everyone. They are all so nice. Manuel is going to let Bill know when he pressure washes his Ranger truck and said he’d do our truck. Barry is going to come by tomorrow and look at my window to let me know what kind of sealant I need to get in Durango on Friday. We came back and filled the toilet papers and stopped by the site of the guy in charge of the church group to say hello and the guy who does the cooking gave us a bag of teriyaki chicken and a bag of vegetables and said he was out of rice. I told him I had rice. We haven’t finished the pulled pork yet! Wonder what tomorrow night will be? At least now I know what we’re having for dinner tomorrow. Nice!

I have my cookies all baked and Bill has finished his dishes. I’ve had my shower and now my blog is done and I can see how today’s photos turned out.

June 19 – I didn’t sleep well last night. The battery warning on the carbon monoxide alarm went of at 12:30 and I grabbed Bill and he said it’s the smoke alarm and I was disoriented and asked where it was. He told me and I got it off the wall and went in the bathroom and once I turned on the light I saw how to get the battery out, then just set it on the sink and went back to bed. Guess it bothered me after that. I’ve been tired all day and after lunch developed a sick stomach when I am standing, but feels better sitting. I made Bill his omelet this morning with toast and a fruit bowl.

before heading back. I wanted to get to my weeding before it got hot and windy so I put on my safari hat, my worn out gloves, sun glasses and grabbed a trash bag. It took me almost an hour to do 2 sites, that’s how bad they were. So I was close to finishing the 4th when I remembered I left the hot pot on to boil water to make a pitcher of tea. This is not like mine at home that shuts itself off after it boils a bit. This one is REALLY old. So I hurried back as quickly as I could and there was less than an inch of water left in it. I was both glad and lucky!

Bill came back from cleaning a few sites and running errands on the mule and we both rested and had a drink. I don’t think I am drinking enough as I don’t go to the bathroom too often and I guess although I’m not sweating much, it’s evaporating so better start getting more fluids. The washer guy called and said he would need a new circuit board for the washer and it would be $260 just for the part, so I said I’d check on a new washer and get back to him. I called Whirlpool who transferred me to Marcone’s and he said there were 2 circuit boards and both had rebates and one is $280 and one is $116 so he gave me the numbers and I called the people back and as usual got the machine and left a message that I need the part number. The extended warranty does not cover any electronic parts. So might hear back from them tomorrow and that might tell the story.

I did some cleaning up and Bill sprayed bug/mosquito spray that Terry gave us in our “yard”. Maybe that will make it so we can sit out in the evenings without making a fire. After lunch we went to the post office to mail our postcards and see if we got the Direct TV card, but alas, no surprise, no card. I did manage to get the new remote programmed to the box though, so it will turn it on and off, so I’m assuming it will handle the rest of the functions if we ever get it box going.

After breakfast we rode our bikes to the office to pick up any reservations and took a ride around Rosa

Bill went out to wash the truck and I went back to finish weeding the 4th site and went ahead and did 2 more that weren’t nearly as bad. My bag was full of weeds and trash so that was my indication it was time to stop. Bill brought Xena out and he sat and read while I filled the feeders AGAIN and put together my grill wind shield. It’s not perfect but should do the trick. I need a dremel to cut the screws off that are too long so will ask Terry if he has one. Bill adjusted the handle bars on my bike a little so I don’t have to lean forward as much and we went for a test spin around the camp and I think it will be better. He is just so handy. Then he and Xena took a nap and I made a huge batch of nectar. Now that we are getting 8 or more birds they go through it really fast. You can just refrigerate it once it’s made.

Bill needed more postcards so he wanted some of him on the riding mower to send all of his school friends. He sends a lot of postcards. I don’t think he gave the blog info to any of his “peeps”. Maybe he doesn’t want them to know the real story.

We only got in 2 new tenants this afternoon, but Terry dropped off 12 reservations that we put out so looks like we’ll have some for the weekend. As expected I didn’t hear back from the washer people, so hope they call tomorrow as we might need to look at new washers in Durango on Friday. They have a Sears appliance store, so that’s a possibility.

I made enough brown rice for 2 meals to go with our teriyaki chicken and stir fry veggies. It was very good but I could have used some more sauce. There was still enough left for us 2-3 more meals so I put about half of the meat and veggies into cool whip containers and a few cookies I made and we took them over to Terry and Carole. We had taken Xena for a short walk first, so this time she got to go for a ride and then we did a bathroom check and stocked the TP. I thought about sitting out but it was chilling down kinda fast so will pass on it tonight.