Lost In America with the Birds

My blogs are written about places I have been, not always where I am at. This can lead to a great deal of confusion for me... and possibly for you too if you know me and you are trying to rendezvous with my crazy dog (or me, or us).

A few times I've had friends turn up at a place I was at 3-4-5-6-7-8 weeks ago, because I just now got around to writing about it.

Anyhow, if you want to know where I am or where I am going (if I even know!) then shoot me an email. There is an email link on the front page of the blog or an email link here.

I am trying to get back to writing and posting every day here, but honest to goodness, some days the internet refuses to allow me such luxury.

Yeah, I have to do the picture thing for  my email because otherwise I end up with a ton of spam from robots that read through my blog looking for my email address. Good grief. Life is so complicated.

My internet is super flaky because I am on a very cheap plan that if I ever cancel, I can not get back again.

More complications.

It works randomly, if it works at all. Occasionally I stay in a campground or RV park that has Wifi, but this is rare. Probably because of my economical budget, the camps I choose typically offer an abundance of nature and a scarcity of modern conveniences.

The past 3 winters I've spent time at a park in Florida that promises free Wifi, but it rarely ever works. I wonder why they bother providing it, why not just get rid of it and lower the rates for camping. What's the use of advertising you offer free Wifi if it never works?

Seems like in these complicated days and times businesses often offer erroneous information and blame it on the computer or the internet. I get very frustrated that many campgrounds and RV Parks refuse to update their rates to reflect the current rates. I was thinking that there used to be laws against false advertising or bait and switch techniques that seem so prevalent in today's life.

But...

I woke up alive!

I feel like the luckiest person around!

I plaster a smile on my face and try to remember to be super grateful for this miracle that started off my day. Grateful for angels, both living and spiritual. Grateful for my readers! Grateful for food in the pantry. Grateful for a little old home to call my own. So what's not to like about waking up alive? It's grand! Another day, another gift of life.

I know I belong in nature. A Cherokee soul forever. No matter where I camp, it seems two critters turn up right away. One is a red cardinal bird and the other is a green tree frog. This has been happening for years. Off and on I take pictures of them, maybe I should make it a goal to try to capture their pic in each place to see if it's the same bird and frog or different ones. I know the frogs come and go, because I have compared pictures. The cardinals are a little harder to photograph because I have a simple camera that works randomly. I end up with lots of pictures of trees and a blurry red spot or no blurry red spot because the bird left the scene faster than I could snap the picture.

Suffice it to say, I don't think it's the same cardinal bird that travels with me. But the little cardinal is always there.

Recently yet another nest was built on my motorhome. Why do birds think I am a great place to set up a nest? I don't think it was the cardinal. Whoever it was laid little tiny blue speckled eggs.

It's mind boggling.

I was heart broken to discover a nest with eggs built on my cargo carrier underneath an upside down bucket that was inside a coiled up water hose that was coiled up in an open milk crate type container strapped to the rear cargo carrier.

This was discovered the day I had to move the wheel estate to another campsite. I had been on the prior site for only 2 weeks. Amazing a bird could build a nest, lay eggs and set up home sweet home in under 2 weeks.

While I was looking for pics to show you, I had to remove not one but two daddy long legged spiders that were INSIDE my little old caravan. How does this happen? Why do so many creatures desire to live with me? Why do I have screens on all the windows if critters are just going to find a way to sneak inside anyhow?

Life is goof.

This is my rear cargo carrier. On the right is a milk crate type box I have strapped down. It's handy for keeping my water hoses inside it. I use my water hoses for connecting to city water when I am camping in places that offer up the luxury of city water. Well, it's not always city water, but that's what RV folks call that wet stuff that comes out of faucets at the camp site. Could be from a well and technically not city water. Could be country water or county water.

 On the back of my rig in the cargo carrier is this open air milk crate type box where I coil two water hoses. This bucket was sitting in the middle of the hose, but somehow became knocked crooked. Meanwhile a crafty wittle birdy built herself a magnificent nest underneath, then laid her eggs. I had no idea she was doing this!

 It looks like tree debris, but underneath is a nest and eggs. I can't seem to find that picture with the eggs that I was sure I took. I have a blurry mess where I ran outside with the camera and it fogged up, I guess from inside air conditioning to outside humidity. I thought I took some later after the camera  unfogged, but maybe not. Maybe my memory is because I meant to but did not. Good grief. Are you confused? I am bewildered.

But I had company and they got to see the precious little eggs. For 24 hours before we had to move, we debated and contemplated WHAT to do with the nest. Both of us are deep nature lovers so this problem dominated our conversations. Do we drive to the next site and hope mother bird follows us? Do we remove the nest and set it somewhere nearby hoping the bird will accept her nest and eggs in the new location even though human hands may have touched the outer edges of the nest? Will she even find the new location at all?

It was mind numbing and also very sad, because we realized that no matter what we did, we would never know the final outcome. We even discussed leaving behind the milk crate, the hose, the bucket, the nest and a big sign, asking humans to leave this pile of stuff alone until the birds hatched. But that idea was scrapped because I live on an efficient budget. I just couldn't afford to replace the items at this time, and I do at least need the water hoses and a place to haul the around when not in use. Besides, someone else might think this a pile of garbage and toss it out or the food chain may get the eggs anyhow.

We even joked that it was a shame the eggs were too small to fry. That sounds awful, but hey, most of you reading this probably eat chicken eggs.

In the end, we relocated the nest in a nearby tree, in hopes that mother bird might find it and adopt it again. If not then some lucky critter might make their own breakfast from the bounty.

I will finish this post with a goofy picture of Harley dog. It has nothing to do with anything else except Harley has amazing abilities to be comedy in motion. He certainly goes out of his way to earn his nickname MONKEY.

Always monkeying around...

Look closely at the picture. That is his sand covered leash tangled up in his fur. I don't know how he does this! He is forever mischievous. Turn away for a minute or two and turn back around and suddenly he has his leash covered in sand, wrapped around his body.

And he doesn't care.

But suffice it to say he is obeying the rules. "All dogs must be leashed."

He wears me out. I tried to give him away a few times, but within an hour folks bring him back. They can't take the nonstop chaos of life with Harley. Indeed I look at old photographs, of the vests and leashes he has accidentally destroyed or worn out from his ridiculous antics. That leash a few minutes before this picture was taken, was a brightly colored striped leash. Sure can't tell that now.

Thank you for stopping by. 

We woke up alive and life is goof!

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