Birds

 

We really enjoy all the birds that frequent the area and have 5 bird feeders hung in the trees beside our site.  The Finches are here year around as well as Sparrows, Doves, Quail and many other bird species that I cannot remember the names of at this moment and I am too lazy to look them up in our bird book.  The Finches are here every day dawn to dusk and such fun to watch, they are very active, and constantly vie for a space on the thistle bag and a very vocal as they sit in the trees and bushes waiting there turn to eat.  I can glance our the windows and see the birds while doing dishes, sewing or knitting and of course while watching TV, we have one of best spots in the park for bird watching and other campers come with camera in hand to take pictures.  We both are looking forward the hummingbirds returning which should be anytime now.  We hung up the feeder but so far no hummingbirds. 

We put the same seed in both bags but the Finches prefer the small bag

The mesh is finer in the small bag, maybe that is the reason

When it very windy the birds take shelter in the cactus.

A Sunday drive

Sulphur Springs Valley in the distance.

A beautiful day, sunny and warm 72 F/ 22 C with a light breeze, I am still feeling really punk with the cold but Woody asked if I would like to go for a drive and I accepted, I can feel crappy at home or in the truck and thought going out and about would be a good idea, so we loaded up the dogs, took some water and snacks, the camera, a box of Kleenex and headed out.  Woody wanted to show me the route that he and Charlie had taken so I could enjoy the spectacular views on the drive through the Dragoon Mountains.  We followed Middlemarch Rd. off State Hwy 80 just north of Tombstone and traveled along the desert floor through the mountains to Pearce, AZ  The road is all gravel with many washes and varies in width from two lane to barely one lane, in surface texture from not too bad gravel to rocky and of course the landscapes changes as one climbs from the desert up into the mountains.  I always find it very interesting to note the changes in the flora and fauna.  From Pearce, we traveled down the Ghost Town Trail to Gleeson Rd, made a detour to the Rattlesnake Man on the N Double U Ranch road, back to Tombstone, AZ then home.  The trip was about 69 miles/109 km, the travel over the mountains was only 19 miles/29km and at the top of the pass we were at 6000 ft. which is not very high but we had a beautiful view of Sulphur Springs Valley.  Traveling that short distance through the mountain pass took us almost 2 hours, travelling between 2 and 10 mph.  I don’t mind travelling mountain roads but did get a little nervous while crawling up to the pass, I could not see any road beside me when I looked out my window, it made me feel a little dizzy as I looked down into the valley, like straight down, no guard rail, I prefer to see a little bit of road on my right side when I look down, it was beautiful though.   We travelled through a small part of the Coronado National Forest, for more details follow the links.

Unfortunately the camera cannot portray the depth.

http://www.arizonabeautiful.com/tucson-southern/the-coronado-national-forest-cochise-county-arizona.html

http://www.gorp.com/parks-guide/coronado-national-forest-outdoor-pp2-guide-cid8927.html

One of the many washes we drove through

The Coronado National Forest covers 1,780,000 acres of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Elevations range from 3000 feet to 10,720 feet in twelve widely scattered mountain ranges or "sky islands" that rise dramatically from the desert floor, supporting plant communities as biologically diverse as those encountered on a trip from Mexico to Canada.

Beautiful little road but so narrow the bushes were scrapping the truck on one side as we drove through.

The sky islands of the Coronado National Forest are unique, in our travels we have driven through many parts of the forest
. 
It was a good day!  
 
Some pictures of the Rattlesnake Man's desert store,

"The Blacksmith Shop"

So many rocks, with natural plants growing among the shelves.

You can see he is out in the middle of the desert

Toys, some very old toys

Can you see the doll buggy and little girls sewing machines, did not ask if these were for sale

Thought the metal "Cowboy" was cool!

Laundry stuff, he did have organization to all his "stuff". 

Got the dreaded cold

Well I have my dear husband’s cold, so no pool and I sure do not have any ambition.  Woody is getting over his cold and feeling better, he did some leather work today and I decided to update the bulletin board by the front door. Figured that would not be too strenuous, surprising how much time I spent going through pictures, choosing some, making a couple of collages and printing out some singles.  I also scanned a bunch of cards that I have been neglecting to do, Birthday cards, Christmas cards, Thank You cards, etc.  I love looking back at the cards and the handwritten notes in the cards, from friends and family.  I still have the bulletin boards in our office/workshop area to do, they need some updating, and more cards to scan, might tackle that tomorrow, depending on how I feel.  The weather is beautiful, sunny and warm, was 22.8 C 73 F today in the shade with a slight breeze and I wore winter clothes all day even though the temp in the fifth wheel was over 80 F 26.7 C, I was just comfortable!    

Staying close to home

Beautiful day here today, sunny, little wind and warm (21C/71 F), unfortunately Woody is suffering from a bad head cold so cannot really enjoy this beautiful day.  He very seldom catches a cold but when he does it is usually full blown.  Tonight Johnny Bencomo is entertaining and the park is serving brownies and ice cream in celebration of February birthdays and we will not be able to attend, very sad as Woody’s birthday was February 1^st, plus we really do not like missing Johnny’s entertainment but we do not want to spread the germs around, this flu/cold has been floating around the park since before Christmas, we thought we had escaped it but not this time. Ah well, it is not life threatening just not fun being sick! As I type this I am feeling like I am coming down with the cold also, which means I will not be able to go to the pool daily, now that is serious! 

Dragoon Mountains

WOW, it has been over a year since I last posted on our blog, not a good thing and I know I will regret not keeping our blog up to date.  With encouragement from some friends I made a commitment to myself to make time each day for making notes to transpose to our blog, today I shall be true to myself and keep that commitment! I will do some catch up posting but not much.

It is interesting how difficult it is to create the habit of writing down ones thoughts and experiences once you lose the habit.  I am not sure everyone suffers from this but for me forming good habits takes commitment and bad habits just seem to sneak into my life without any effort on my part, why is that???  I have developed one good habit this winter though, I am back going to the pool regularly for exercise, Woody says he is going come with me and use the gym equipment while I use the pool which will be great, we both can do what we enjoy and stay in shape!

Woody went for a drive today with friend Charlie through the Dragoon Mountains, a range of small mountains about 25 miles long running south-south east through Willcox. The mountain range is one of Arizona's "sky islands". Mt. Glenn (7,520 ft/2,292 m) is highest point in the Dragoon Mountains. The Little Dragoon Mountains are the continuation of the Dragoon Mountains north of Texas Canyon. The mountains were included in the short-lived Dragoon National Forest, which was established in 1907 and combined into Coronado National Forest in 1908, in the Douglas Ranger District.  Cochise Stronghold Memorial Park lies near Mt. Glen on the eastern slope of the range and the historic town of Tombstone can be found at the southwestern portion of the range. Tombstone is 10 miles from our winter home of Tombstone Territories RV Park. The mountains also boost a few ghost towns.  

 Woody said it was a beautiful drive and we shall make the trip one day and will plan to stop at the Cochise Stronghold. The round trip is about 90 miles (144km) and many of those miles are “primitive roads” which means it is rocky, gravel and only maintained about once a year, which means traversing those roads is very slow going and one only wants to be driving on them in dry weather.

You can click on any of these pictures for a larger view.

 The camera is good but a camera can never capture what the eye can see.