Let the Work Begin

Last Wednesday evening Patrick mentioned he was going to get up early on Thursday and go rent a tiller to do his garden spot.  Sometime between Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, the decision changed courses and turned to "renting" a person to do the tilling.  After a couple phone calls, he found someone.   Evidently, this person does big tilling projects as he said he had a tractor.  Patrick told him that he didn't think he needed a tractor as our garden spot isn't that big and a tractor may not fit.  I guess it did.  Needless to say, it didn't take him very long to do the job and sure saved Patrick a lot of work in renting a tiller.

 

 

The next project began this morning.  We are putting new siding on our house.  The current siding is cedar siding that has seen better days.  Our new siding will be steel siding.  We're already finding "surprises" with the little bit of siding that has been removed - should be an interesting project.



Red, Yellow, Blue & Migrating Birds and New Bird Feeders

This is a mixture of different birds we have been seeing on a regular basis the last week or so and also two new bird feeders I just finished for use in Arizona next winter.  We will use one and the other will be used by our friends Carol and Dan.  Enjoy the pictures.

 

The blue bird is an Indigo bunting and the one in the background is a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  We see the male Rose-breasted Grosbeak quite often but didn't get any pictures.

 

 

This is of course a Goldfinch.  We have several visiting the feeding now.

 

 

This is our resident Cardinal.  I think he and his mate stay here most of the year.  He isn't as red right now as he will be later in the summer.

 

 

This is the backside of the two new feeders.

 

 

This is a side view showing the hooks that hold one side of the roof down.

 

 

This is the front side of the feeders.

 

 

This shows the roof open and ready for the feeder to be filled with bird food.  The red things inside are "V" shaped inserts that will get the seeds to flow out under the sight windows.

 

 

This is a temporary visitor on the way to Canada where he will spend the summer.  It is a Yellow-rumped Warbler.  If you look closely between his wings, you can see some of his yellow rump.

 

 

This is another shot of the Yellow-rumped Warbler

 

 

That's the show for today.

 

Patrick

 

This 'N That

Never know what you'll find in the garage.  I think I passed the door on the storage cabinet a couple times before I noticed this sign hanging on it.  Patrick said he found it at the swap meet in Arizona but didn't have the right hook to hang it until this week.

 

 

Another thing that happened while we were in Arizona (besides both of our birthdays) was our 6th wedding anniversary.  Good thing we have Google to search to find out the "appropriate" anniversary.  The 6th one is wood or iron.  I got a wooden lap tray to hold my laptop computer (no photo needed).  This is what I got Patrick (the iron part).

 

 

Now, we're waiting for some of the Arizona weather to arrive in Minnesota.





Mount Rushmore

We finally made it to Mount Rushmore today.  It was in the middle of a snow storm and the pictures we took are not the best.  After Rushmore, we headed on east toward home and stopped at Wall Drug along the way.  That place has really changed since I was there about 45 years ago.  There is a whole town there now and the "drug store" is really about 4 buildings.  We didn't stay long as we wanted to get on east to our motel for the night in Chamberlain SD.  We will get home tomorrow and glad to be there.  Enjoy the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patrick

 

Four Corners

Day two of our trip home took us by the Four Corners Monument.  We weren't there very long, but did take a couple pictures which are below.  Then we started the trip on north through the Colorado mountains intending to end up in Rifle Colorado.  However, even with the crooked roads and the up and down the mountains, we made good time and made it to Craig Colorado which is the last town of any size before we get into Wyoming.  We will get an early start tomorrow and hope to get to Hot Springs South Dakota.  That may not happen because of the blizzard in South Dakota.  Have to see what the weather looks like in the morning.  We may just make a late start and stop at Cheyenne Wyoming.  Below are the pictures including some scenery shots that Pat took in the mountains.

 

This is a plaque at the Four Corners monument that tells all about it I think.  It is very hard to read and was there standing in front of it also.

 

 

Pat standing where the Four Corners meet.

 

 

Patrick standing where the Four Corners meet.  Much better expression today.

 

 

Nice mountain

 

 

Several nice mountains

 

 

Now that's a cliff.

 

 

Another mountain

 

 

Mountains with snow slides

 

 

This is one of the very tame turns.  We had several "S" turns that you could only go 10 mph through and also several double "S" turns which we had to go through just as slow. 

 

 

The road continues on down the mountain valley.  Lots of snow up in the mountains.

 

 

That was today's trip.  Weather permitting, we will get to South Dakota tomorrow.

 

Patrick

 

Grand Canyon

Today was the first day of our trip home to Minnesota and on the way we did a tour of the Grand Canyon National Park.  We stopped at several overlooks and checked out the canyon.  It sure is a bad case of erosion.  We took the following pictures as we went from place to place.  Hope you enjoy them.

 

I am not going to comment on most of these pictures.  Just enjoy the scenery.  I will comment on a couple along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

Have to comment on this very nice picture of Pat with the canyon in the background.

 

 

 

You can see a hiking trail at the bottom of the canyon in the center of the picture.  Don't think I could make it down there.

 

 

That line down at the bottom of the canyon that looks a little like a trail is actually a dried up creek bed that dumps into the river when there is any rain or melting snow to fill it.

 

 

 

Not sure why I had such an expression, I think it was because the sun was in my eyes.

 

 

 

As we pulled into the last overlook we stopped at, we saw this bird watching the people that were around.  Not sure if it was a Raven or a very large Crow.

 

 

This was a zoomed in view of the Colorado river at the bottom of the canyon.  The next picture was taken in the wide angle view, but you can still see the river some.

 

 

 

This was just another zoomed in view of the previous picture.

 

 

That's Pat in the lower right corner of the picture.

 

 

There were some pretty sights and amazement at the size of the Grand Canyon.  I asked a Park Ranger there where all that dirt went and he said it formed the Delta at the end of the river which is in Mexico south of Yuma Arizona.

 

Tomorrow we hope to end up in Rifle Wyoming after stopping by the 4 corners monument.  So far the weather is okay, but may not be so good in South Dakota when we get there on Tuesday.

 

Patrick

 

Cactus Flowers and 2015 Digs

Many of the cacti are in bloom now.  We have two small patches in front of the house that have been blooming for a few days.  I finally got around to taking some pictures.  Also, took a drive this afternoon and got pictures of the house we will be in next season and also of the one that our friends Carol and Dan will be in.  They are both nice places and only a mile apart.  Below are the pictures.  Enjoy.

 

This is the house that Carol and Dan will be calling home next winter.

 

 

This is the house that Pat and I will call home for the winter.

 

 

This is one of the two patches of cactus that has the most blooms.  There are still more to open yet.

 

 

This is a close up of a few of the flowers in the second cactus patch.  You can see the buds that haven't opened yet.

 

 

The desert can be a pretty place when it is in bloom.

 

Patrick

 

Arizona Wildlife

This afternoon we were sitting on the patio and saw a couple visitors that weren't too sure how they were going to get around us.

 

We have cottontails in MN but they don't have ears this long.  We're wondering if they're part jack rabbit.

 

Besides the Quail that run across the back yard, this is about the extent of the local wild life around us.