A LESSON ON THE BIRDS..EED AND THE BEES

    First of all, if I do say so myself , last night’s Italian Beefs were “right on!” And last night’s sunset was pretty,  but we need a few clouds in the sky to give it the “WOW” factor.
Our daughter from Indianapolis skyped us last night so we could see our newest grandson, Aiden Kendall Wolffe, 16 mo.old. I think he was bored with Mimi and Papa, (what he calls us), and was more interested in an empty Huggies box.  He had discovered that climbing in and out of the Huggies diaper box was much more fun than wearing them….and more entertaining than we were…I must say that he certainly entertained us!!!
   We woke up about 6:30AM  this morning and watched some TV.  We don’t have any local channels here, so we missed the superbowl, missed the Daytona 500, and we are missing the Olympics…We catch the medal winners on MSNBC in the morning when we wake up.  About 7:15, I did my “sunrise reconnaissance” run and tried to get a decent photo of the sunrise peeking over the mountains…
 
…At least I managed to get a couple this time…. I turned on the coffee pot and jumped back under the comforter for a couple more minutes to warm up…and hey, what’s the hurry anyway?  Finally, we couldn’t resist the pull of the aroma from fresh brewed coffee, so we rolled out lazy butts out of bed. Dennis checked our email and read our favorite blogs.  We had an email from friends we had met a couple years ago in Texas.  They are originally from Minnesota and have been “full timers” for about 3 years now.  Anyway, they are wintering in the “valley” in Texas and she said their weather left much to be desired this year down in San Benito.  I had told her about Hickiwan Trails RV park and how much we love it…I think they may try it next year…
   The sun was peeking out at the top of the flat top mountain behind us…

   We took our walk about 9:30AM, after I had put together our dinner for tonight.. Yes, I know I am anal about prepping dinner, but it sure beats having to do it at 5PM…Tonight’s menu is spaghetti, made with Italian turkey sausage, dry red wine and finished off with a jar of Ragu….No, I don’t simmer it for 12 hours…The reason the Grill master isn’t being called into action is that his and my favorite show, Border Wars, is on TV..and if he has to grill, he would miss some of it..that is just NOT acceptable!
The wind had picked up, but the day was warming. I am committed to trying to wear shorts from now on…after all, we ARE in Arizona …and,it makes for less laundry.  Our walk took us around the RV park for our 2 miles.  My nemesis, Arthur Ritis was reminding me of our almost 4 mile desert extravaganza yesterday.  When we got done, a cup of coffee outside was in order. We have noticed the pesky bees wreaking havoc on our hummingbird feeder , but they are now manning (or should I say “beeing”) a full out assault on our birdseed feeder! What would a bee want with birdseed?”, you ask….

  












As you can see, there are bees even on the inside of the feeder….I must tell you that Den filled this feeder on Saturday morning and this is how much they have cleaned it…..





Dennis looked up birdseed and birds ,(not birds and bees, I wouldn’t let him know about that) ,online and this is what we found out.  The bees think the birdseed is pollen, especially if you have cracked corn in it…If you look close, you can see the corn dust on their little skinny bee legs…They think if they carry it away that they are pollinating…They have to be weighted down by the dust…Have these bees working out on mini Nautilus equipment back at the hive??..And I noticed they are leaving a big corn mess underneath the feeder… (which the birds are cleaning up)…

So now we have had our lesson on the bees ….and birdseed.
I sat in my “lookout” spot on the South side of our camper so I could keep a close eye on the neighborhood. A couple RV’s pulled out this morning, opening up my view of the South Mountain…however briefly..

We were talking to our neighbors Cheri and Buddy, who have been here since we have. They were packing up their pick up to go camping tonight at Charlie Bell pass on the Cabeza Prieza..If you want to see the road our blog about it go to our blog, A Day at Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge… They have a capped Pick up truck and are planning on sleeping in it…They have a propane stove and are loading up water. They say that the sky after dark out there is fabulous….there are no lights anywhere near, so the stars are brilliant….They are dry camping, which , of course means no hook ups…I could do that for 1-2 nights tops…that’s as much of a dry camper as I get,
   Well, time is flying by here at Hickiwan Trails…We have just under 2 weeks left and I want to get to the Barry Goldwater Range and take a hike at Crater Range…There are just  too many things to do and not enough days in one’s lifetime to do them all..I have such a big “bucket list” that I need another bucket!!!
Thanks for following along and tolerating my ridiculous rantings, misspellings, and unnecessary recipes….And remember…”Wherever you go….There you are!”