Bayou Country

 Oh dear, I have really ignored my blog for a long time. I think I will revive it with a Texas post before I head to  Colorado. Here are some photos from a recent visit to Armand Bayou Nature Center. So much wildlife in this beautiful bayou setting so near to urban areas. 

Running from Fire!

September 22, 2020, Estes Park is under mandatory evacuation due to being practically surrounded by several fast moving forest fires. Here we are driving down Hwy 34 toward Loveland in the darkness at 2 pm. Air not fit to breathe and ash falling on everything. 

We will head on out to Houston. 

Poor Forgotten Blog

A long long time ago, in a world far far away, I started a blog (it was a popular thing to do in 2011).  As I was enjoying my last year of employment and then my first year of retirement, I was quite diligent about posting to this blog. But then life happened and, frankly, after all these 9 years of retirement I had forgotten all about it.  One day recently I was just surfing along and went to some artist’s blog on Google. Behold, there was a little window at the bottom that showed my blog. I was amazed that it was all still there. The Cloud must indeed be a limitless thing to hold all these random rantings of so many for so long.  Anyway I thought I would add a few updates as comments and share it again. In these COVID times a bit of diversion may be cheery for some. After all, maybe there are others like me who have finished watching all of  Netflix. 

2019 A Good Year for Travel

In 2019 we took several trips  Colorado as usual, but also Arizona, Davis Mountains, and Europe (a 50th Anniversary Viking Riverboat Cruise).  It was fortuitous that we got some retirement travel under our belts because 2020 was to be a travel bust for sure.  Stay home and stay safe became our motto.

Hummingbird Time

It doesn't seem to matter to this Broad Tailed Hummingbird that it's snowing and snow has collected on the feeder--he still needs lots of energy.  The males have shown up in town and are setting up their territories.  I have been watching three of them fighting over the feeder.  Come on guys, there are lots of places to sit and eat around the table.  The females will show up soon.  The Broad Tails are probably my favorite variety because of the whirring sound they make when they fly--you always know when they are in the vicinity.  The other hummingbird species that frequent Colorado don't make that sound.  

This finch thinks he's a hummingbird.  I have seen him landing on the feeder and pecking around a number of times.   Summer is a great time for birdwatching in the Colorado front range.  Everything from wild turkeys, raptors, and water birds, to songbirds.   Many of them birds that I have never seen in Texas, but some that I see in Texas in the winter are here in the summer.  

This morning I watched a hummingbird flying parabolas out in the yard.  He would fly straight up and then straight down, but pull out of the dive maybe 6 feet from the ground.  Then I noticed that there was a second one sitting on top of a shrub near the low point of his flight path.  I think he was trying to scare that one away.  These little guys are the only birds that can even fly backwards.  Sometimes, I have also seen them fly up to the window while I sit typing on the computer.  They will just stare in the window for a few seconds and then fly away.  But this means they are very close to me--really cool!!

Retirement = Too Busy to Blog

Can it be--that retired people are busy?  You think you are going to have too much time on your hands, but NOT.  Household projects, grandparent activities, travel, shopping, a little nap--and the day is gone.

But once in a while, you just take a day off.  Saturday was one of those days. We went to the Estes Park Rotary Club's Duck Race, which is an annual fund raiser event for local charities.  There were over 5700 ducks in the race.  Check out the little video I made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vugcqjm0zo

Yard Friends of the Rodent Family

Our little friend above is a Wyoming Ground Squirrel.  They are plentiful around Colorado.  Many folks want to poison them so they don't mess up their lawn, but its not like I have a real lawn--just a meadow with native grasses.  You do have to watch where you step when walking out in the yard--there are holes, much like a prairie dog town.  But these guys are fun to watch.  This morning I watched two of them chase each other round and round, then get in a scuffle for a few moments and then chase some more.  I guess someone must have gone in the wrong tunnel.  They are almost perfectly camoflaged with the soil and grass.  Sometimes when I go outside they don't run away, they just freeze--makes for good picture taking.  Of course, if I get close enough, they will run.

This fellow is a Golden Mantle Ground Squirrel.  He (she?) seems interested in digging holes up under the rock outcroppings in the yard, rather than peppering the yard with holes and mounds like the Wyoming type.  Or, they also seem to like to tunnel under the concrete front porches--quess porches look like big rocks to them.

The bunny rabbits seem to place their holes right at the base of bushes in our yard.  And the field mice seem to like our crawl space under the house.   Representatives of the rodent family abound, and each has their preferred spot to build their dens. Although I have not seen rats, which is more than I can say for our neighborhood in Houston.

One rodent we do not have in our yard is beavers. However, to see them, we only have to go down to the end of our street where they have a lodge and many dams at a creek there.

Estes View

I "borrowed" this photo from the Estes Park Convention and Visitors Bureau brochure.  Isn't it beautiful.  No wonder I love this place.  The white tower at left center is the historic Park Theater.  The main street of Estes Park, Elkhorn Avenue, runs fronm the lower left corner diagonally across the page and disappears behind the hill at right.  About a half inch above the last "s" in Estes, an oval-shaped Christmas Decoration is visible sitting on the hill overlooking town.  All of the street trees along Elkhorn Avenue are decorated with small white lights for the holidays.