Winter Roost

 

Once I settled in, it was time to do some yard work. The truck is hiding one of the biggest jobs... tree overgrowth in the cactus. 

In the circle is a tree stump from the tree they cut down last year. Well, during the time we were gone, it started growing a lot of suckers from the stump, hiding most of the cactus. This is a beautiful cactus when in bloom... hopefully we'll see it this year.

Every tree needed overgrowth removed from it. After trimming all the overgrowth, it was time to load it up and take it to the yard waste pile at the back of the property; three trips made. 

In between all the yard work I stopped to pick up Carol from the airport.

I was admiring this mural at the airport, I turned my back for just a minute...

and look who showed up. I didn't realize they had teleport services there.

My next task was a bush on the slide side. The bush was attracting bees... which Carol doesn't need.

Look to the right side of the trailer in the top portion of the picture, you can see the bush. The lower portion of the picture shows the bush gone... and ANOTHER run to the yard waste pile.

The reason we bought this lot was for the view out the back of the lot, and today was one of those days proving it was a good decision.

These are the cattle that roam the working ranch around us. This was actually the second appearance of the cattle for me. The first day was the day before while making a yard waste run. The small group was grazing around the waste pile, staring at us. Our bigger concern with the group was the guy with horns... but no problems.

Back to today. I decided it was a nice day to go and wash the truck, and out the gate, along the road...

This girl didn't have a problem letting me by, she saw how dirty the truck was.

I made it to the first car wash, but I wasn't pleased. The only bay that I could use my debit card was the trucker's bay. The problem with this bay was the red mud I had to get through so I could wash the truck. I started my pre-wash, then switched over to one of the other options to soap up the truck... no go. I took my wet truck out of the bay and looked for the other car wash. By the time I got there, the rinse job from the first car wash made my truck look dirtier than when I started. The second car wash was a much better place, with all the cleaning options available. Coming back to the park with a clean truck, I was greeted with... more cows.

It appeared that it was cow day around "The Ranch".

There is lots of wildlife around here.

This guy was B-boppin' around our tree in the back, right outside the slide window; he is a "Red Breasted Nuthatch". We have a lot of Doves and Desert Quail too.

The rest of my afternoon was spent hanging Christmas lights in one of our trees in the front of the lot.

The next day Carol and I helped clean the "Ranch House", which is usually done twice a year. Then Carol and I congregated with some of the other residents to view the solar eclipse.

This was what it looked like taking the photo with my phone... impressive 'ay. I borrowed someone's smoked paper glasses and this is the result using my phone...

Not the best, but we got to see it.

I forgot to mention earlier about an issue I had while driving back from Artesia, NM, which is just up the road. I'm flying low on the highway, fighting gusty winds, when I look in my rear view mirror to see the truck bed cover flopping around like a fish out of water. A gust of wind blew the cover right out of its tracks. I had to pull over at a picnic area so that I could roll it up and secure it. There wasn't much investigation required to see that we needed to buy a new cover... which I did order after I got home.

So how's that for the first week at our new winter roost.