Monday, May 12, 2014

Tornado, toys, insurance and walnut sized quail

Arizona is home to many creatures.  Last month, I was rounding the corner of the building at Las Fuentes Resort in time to see the Blue Heron fishing in their lily pond.  I asked the lady at the front desk if there were any fish in the pond and she said they stocked it with goldfish.  I then told her she did not have any left because the Heron was in there fishing and apparently had quite a feast.  He is a lovely graceful bird and I think he is the same one that wades in the shallows at Watson Lake.  There are lots of frogs there so he has quite a feast.  He looked at me and then fished some more and lazily got out of the pond and spread his wings and flew to the top of the roof.  He looked so cheeky standing up there staring down at me as if to say, "Ha Ha, you came well after I had a belly full of Las Fuentes goldfish.  I think I will go back to Watson Lake for a top off the tank with frogs."
One afternoon I came home and noticed what I thought was the garden hose on the front rocks.  I knew it was not the yellow/orange garden hose when it slithered away into the Rosemary Bush.  Ah yes, we have a snake in our front yard.  One warm day a few days later he was sunning himself back on our rocks and then he went over to the neighbors for a look see but soon came back to our rocks.  He is really pretty and is about 4 feet long at least.  I am not sure what kind of snake he is, but I do know that he is not a rattler.  There is also a similar colored snake that lives in the big rocks in our back yard, along with assorted lizards and Tarantulas.
The Quail family have hatched their chicks and they look like little mobile walnuts.  I watched the family pecking around the Rosemary bush and all of a sudden, there was with the adult birds, a flurry of little feather balls with legs - mobile walnuts.  They skitter so fast there is little chance of  catching a long enough  look to count them but roughly there are about 12 to 15 of them.
We have had a lot of problem with the Javelina tipping over the garbage cans.  They seemed to have zeroed on my neighbors can and it gets tipped over and feasted upon on a regular basis. That is, until last week when they went out and bought a Tough Shed to put the garbage cans in - it locks and not one solitary Javelina can break in and steal the contents.  Truly, these animals must have cast iron stomachs to eat the garbage they do.  So far they have tipped our garbage can one time - and it was a mess.
On Mother's day we were on Face time with the family in Lincoln and they were all downstairs for the night sleeping in the basement.  The sirens had sounded a Tornado warning so they grabbed food etc. and went down to the basement.  Lyla got on the phone with me and was telling me that if the roof gets blown off, all of Oliver's toys would be blown away but not to worry, the family has insurance and so in a week or so, Oliver could go out and buy new toys.  However, they did take time to round up their Devices (electronic devices including the Ipad).  I doubt if Lyla thought that the storm would be so particular as to sort out Oliver's belongings from the other stuff in the top floor and leave her stuff, Ethan's stuff and the Baby's stuff intact.  She was just convinced that Oliver would lose all his belongings.  Now that is a selective storm!
After hearing all that they took down to the basement to eat, I am sure they could be holed up for at least a week before they ran out........ha ha ha ha

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