California Playing - Tour to San Simeon, California

Saturday, March 21, 2020

My life took a few changes over the last several days. On the same day, that the Refuge made changes to keep us all apart, due to the pandemic, my friend, Cindy, told me that yes, she COULD use my help for up to six weeks to take care of her after hip surgery.  I had to finish up some of my assigned chores and get packed to leave. She had her surgery cancelled and then was called back to be told that it was still on. I finally got myself off Tuesday evening and drove for 16 of the next 20 hours to get to her house Wednesday evening and let myself in. I barely got in my food and clothes before crashing. I texted Cindy and had a short conversion with her before I was comatose.

I got up the next morning to inventory her food, make some menus, and build a grocery list. I got to Albertsons to find it full of people with a checkout line that wound to the back of the store and with many shelves bare of items. While I was standing in line, Cindy texted me that she was getting out of the hospital a day early and that I needed to come talk to her physical therapist. I rushed home, put up the perishable groceries, grabbed Cindy's walker, and headed to the hospital, about forty minutes away. 

I got her home and then fixed her meals and brought her stuff as needed. But she is making a great recovery and even made her own breakfast this (Saturday) morning. She also suggested that I go off on a tour to enjoy the California coast, about a half-hour away. And Saturday was to be the only day we could expect sun for several days.

So I gathered up all the information pages she had prepared for me and started off in the gray day, still hoping the sun would soon burn off all the clouds. That didn't happen but the light changed all the time and I had a wonderful day of discovery.

One of my first views of the Pacific ocean

Western Gull- the main gulls I saw

California ground squirrel

Whimbrel

Based on the website on them, these are this years pups.  They fast for 8-10 weeks before leaving - and they are on a six mile stretch of beach in about this density. 

They are cute blobs

This guy had dug himself in

I tried to do some studies of faces - but most were asleep

The vultures were tearing into what seemed to be an erosion tube. 

Peace

I saw a few brown pelicans

None of the seals were lively for long - most awake times lasted less than two minutes

Piedras Blancas Light Station - you can only meet and go on a tour but they were shut down due to the pandemic

The light was better on the way back so I stopped along CA Hwy. 46 (Green Valley Road) for the most amazing sceenery

I think one can find almost any shade of green in this countryside now

This road has maybe twenty vineries, standing shoulder to shoulder I pulled off on an entrance to take this picture

I'm looking forward to another outing near the end of the week, when the rains stop - this time with Cindy. She has only used Tylenol for pain since she came home from the hospital and will be ready for an adventure as soon as we get a nice day.

A Working Visit to Blanca Wetlands

March 6, 2020

When I got the volunteer needed notice from the Monte Vista Crane Festival folks, with a list of all the jobs that needed doing, I immediately went on line and signed up for a bunch of bus tours as the person in charge of the loudspeaker equipment.  I told Deb, the festival coordinator, that she could take me back off any tour but the one to the Blanca Wetlands.  This is a BLM lands wetland and is closed from mid February to mid July to protect breeding birds, especially shorebirds. It is an area of critical environmental concern and provides an increasingly important habitat for birds and amphibians. For more about it, click here.


The trip was led by Sue Swift-Miller, a wetlands Biologist with the BLM. She spent most of the forty-five minute trip telling us about the wetland, their importance, and how they are now artificially manipulated to mimic old water patterns, before over use of the valley's water resulted in significant lowering of the water table and the loss of water for wildlife.  These wetlands completely dried up before the BLM started a project to restore them. She was joined by two other staff members who knew more about the birds.

Our first stop - sneaking up a bank to overlook a lake full of waterfowl

But they flew anyway, then some came back and landed

Most of the group enjoying the ducks

I love the landscape here, up against the  Sangre de Christi mountains. 

Beauty

We had a bald eagle overlooking our second stop

Sue - in white shirt - talking with a visitor

We had time to walk several of the trails 

And stop to view and photograph birds

Getting to the end of the tour - after walking several trails - now waiting for the last of the hikers

But another stop invigorated us

This reminded me of herding cats - hopefully we'll get everybody back

Another beautiful landscape - looking at Mt. Blanca - and more of our tour participants

We all agreed that this tour - which only happens every few years was wonderful. We got to enjoy vast numbers of ducks and geese.

This is a very different place  in July, when the shorebirds have just finished breeding.

Hundreds of avocets were present last July

Lots of Work

March 6, 2020

I usually arrive and get myself moved in for a few days.  But Suzanne was waiting with a list of things to be done. The recycling was due to be hauled in from both refuges. Both MonteVista and Alamosa needed to have their hunt areas shut down.

A view along a back road from the hunting area 

I found seventeen eagles along the route - one tree had six in it

A view of the Canada geese and mallards enjoying the Rio Grande River

The view with a few eagles way off in the distance

As part of the hunt areas shutdown, I documented repairs - here a section of fence is down

 I needed to make signs, then haul sign holders and barriers from the BLM office and distribute them on the refuge as needed for the bus and auto tours of Monte Vista.

Our roads are narrow and we try to get visitors to park in the parking lots near the grain fields

This is our main viewing area by one of our barley fields - it is closed to most vehicles for the Festival

While adding barriers and building a rope fence, I took time to enjoy some visitors enjoying the cranes

And I too zoomed in on some of the feeding cranes

And enjoyed them leaving to go loaf a few hours

 And I had to make some sign holders for the Friend's of San Luis Valley Refuges to use at the Festival. This  consisted of retrieving two buckets, two PVC pipes, a bag of Quickcrete, all miles apart, and then mixing the Quickcrete and putting in the PVC pipes. I made it worse by trying to move the 80 lb bags of Quickcrete to the truck and catching the bag on the corner of the truck.  I ended up having to sweep it up and move each half of it to a bucket to haul back to my work site.

The sign bases all ready to haul to the festival - I did that also

 We spent the morning and early afternoon of last Thursday setting up the festival. We hauled in our own tables and chairs as well as tall background sections.  And we set up tables and chairs owned by the festival building. I set up a LOT of tables and chairs. The tables were dirty, and I had my cleaning stuff with me, so I got the job of scrubbing them down.  Then Suzanne called us all for lunch on her.  I had just filled my bucket with rinse water and just set it and my rags down. When I got back from a delicious taco lunch, I went back to discover somebody had turned my nice clean water into mud - and rinsed ALL the food tables. I only had to do all the tables used by the various government agencies and the Friends of the Refuges.  I went home exhausted and went to sleep early so I could be back at 6:00 A.M. to set up for the tours and then help finish setting up the displays inside.

Stay tuned for the tours.

Colorado Homecoming

March 1, 2020

I left Houston around 4:20 A.M  at 65 ° and made it to Amarillo just in time to meet the cold front with a few bands of swirling snow. By the next morning, as I was leaving just before dawn, it was 19°. My trip soon slowed as I had to stop and admire the scenery, and eat breakfast and do other piddling things. I stopped to take a picture of the pass and had two 18 wheelers pass me.  I passed one and was completely blinded as it blew muddy snow on me.  I had to stop in Alamosa for groceries and for a car wash to get the mud and salt off my car.

At the beginning of the pass into San Luis Valley from the east

My car after getting through the pass 

Instead of getting to my house about 1:00 P.M., I got there closer to 3:00P.M. I was shocked to see that my gate was locked and I didn't have a key.  Everyone was in a meeting and I didn't get any answers as to how to proceed. Finally my boss texted me back and told me to go to the Monte Vista office, and pick up all my keys. I also figured out what the code for the coded lock might me. I was able to get in about an hour before dark.

Almost Home, Sweet, Home - View from my driveway gate, a quarter of a mile away

Actually home, only two hours later

I'm used to having a pair of owls in my yard, so didn't pay much attention to the big bird sitting in one of the dead trees. But when I got down my quarter mile driveway, I noticed the white head and tail of an adult bald eagle. This was the first time I've had an eagle as a yard bird. (And I saw it again on Sunday, when I went home for lunch.

"My" yard eagle

I was too tired to do much more than bring in the essentials and wash my sheet I'd left on the bed. I must have forgotten to unset a mouse trap and found a dead mouse which I left out for the grateful yellow billed magpies. I had to stop once more to enjoy my welcoming home sunset over the San Juan Mountains.

Sunset over the San Juan Mountains

Reflected sunset on the Sangre de Christi mountains to the east

I spent most of Thursday getting moved in and making some soup. I did a little cleaning on the local vault toilets, and hauled a truck load of trash to recycling in Alamosa. And I did have to stop by to check out the sandhill cranes. All the crane pictures are within a mile of my house.

Evening experiences of Colorado geese - they are flying in from other fields to roost with the cranes

Many cranes were still feeding in our overview site

Flying in 

Friday my boss was back at the office so I went over to meet here and get a few assignments.  I also got back on federal e-mail. I was really excited that she had activated my security card and I didn't have to make an appointment and drive to get it. (Some years, that is an all day job. ) Then I spent a few hours at the library to use their Wi-Fi to start to clean up my drives and start new folders for this year. I also found the folder of signs I had made from last year and forwarded them to her for printing for festival use. I left her with a whole list of jobs, including more hauling, shutting down the hunting areas of both refuges, and doing some chores for our Crane Festival which happens next weekend.

Saturday I left home at 6:30 A.M.  so I could be out at the magic hours for photography while shutting down the hunt areas, collecting signs, picking up trash, and cleaning bathrooms.  I attempted to clean a bathroom in the hunt area and found my spray was FROZEN.  I put it inside the truck to thaw and then stopped at the Alalmosa Visitor Center a few hours later to clean the two vault toilets.  They were filthy,  so I made a strong mix of Simple Green inside the Visitor Center. I found the spray from the bottle was freezing to the toilet unless I worked really fast. The mixture I made to scrub the toilets worked a little better.  But when I I attempted to scrub the floors, it froze into a muddy mush that I had to sweep.out.  I found I had made a skating rink, so had to put on more water on and swept  it out really fast, then scrubbed  with the broom and swept out more mush.  Then I had to repeat a few more times until I was pretty sure no one would die. So a ten minute job turned into a half hour one. And I thought I had learned everything about cleaning bathrooms in my decades of cleaning them. I was wrong.

Gotta shut this gate and drive through the back roads. The signs were not as described, so
I'll have to bring back tools and do this all over again.  Yea. 

After cleaning the vault toilet, I took the long way home along the Rio Grand River which delineates the eastern side of the refuge. That took forever because of all my forced stops to take pictures. This  is our prettiest area.

The Rio Grande with Mt. Blanca in the background

The river had interesting ice forms from breakup in some places

I found lots of Canada geese - there were two bufflehead here but they dived and disappeared

I had to stop and take pictures of the beauty at every bend

Eagles are moving through here now- - there is one juvenile here  - one tree held six

This was the way I usually saw eagles - can you find three?

I saw a few sparrows to far to identify them - this looks like a Savanah

I was surprised to find a singing western meadowlark

I finished the work at Alamosa and came back to Monte Vista to look for some buckets and signs for the Festival.  I stopped to haul some barriers from Alamosa to  the Monte Vista shop, which is the staging area for the festival. Then I decided I was hungry and needed to roast the chicken that had been patiently waiting for two days. After a delicious lunch, I absolutely needed a nap.  I slept so hard, that the Friend's President came and left me money to go shopping for her without me ever noticing until I found her message last night.

This morning, I continued shutting down the Monte Vista hunt areas. I had four separate areas. On the map I thought I could drive from one to the next inside the refuge. But after two slightly hairy failed, attempts, I had to go around by the highway. There I found several problems, including some broken gates hat kept me from actually securing the sites. At the final site, I found, instead of two hunt signs to remove, there were thirty.  I finally got finished at nearly noon and went home to cook a cauliflower and eat leftover roast chicken and sweet potato.

Then I drove back to Alamosa to edit pictures and write this blog. Its's a hard job, but somebody has to do it. .  It's a hard job, but somebody has to do it.  We'll all be working like crazy to get everything ready for the festival.  I'll be supervising the loudspeaker equipment on several bus tours and having lots of fun. Next week's blog will be late since I'll work through mid afternoon on Sunday and the last few hours will involve hauling boxes, chairs, and tables.  I'll probably work eleven days straight and then take off a couple of days to catch up.