3-13-04

I zoomed into Globe yesterday to pick up a few things from th grocery and give a call to the PO in  Miles City to have what ever mail I have, forwarded to a little town on the state line called Clifton. It is near Morenci which is a famous mine for a deep blue turquoise. I also stopped by the Sally (salvation army thrift store) to check out the shirt and straw hat collection. They didn’t have any straw hats but I found a couple of really nice 100% cotton XXL shirts that will be just right for summer wear. I looked in a little western store for straw hats but really didn’t find anything that was big enough that I liked.

On the way back to camp I saw a completely white bird that at first I thought was a dove but after getting out the bionocluars I have no idea what kind of bird it is. It is dove size but the legs were too long. it had a light orange beak and I can hardly wait for Lowell to come back. he has been gone to Utah where one of his granddaughters is getting married. He really loves his birds. He was telling me about sneaking up and getting a  picture of a strange bird and then sending it off to a ornithologist to identify.  It turned out that it was a fairly common variation which sort of embarrassed him.

I just took a little walk with e dog and had to come back to camp and get the camera. I was just down last week looking at this ocotillo and  checking out the bud that was just starting to grow at the end of  the long branch. I bent it down to look at it and there were no leaves on it at that time. As you can see a week later, it really took off in that hot weather we had. The end of these long wands will have bright red flowers and the desert will look like a survey party came though with their flagging. As you can see from the photo there has been more moisture coming through. Last night there was a short thundershower. It really cooled off last night and it was nice to grab the down for an extra cover.