Bills blog stop: Aug 21, 2007

Pepe's Great Escape!

Today, while we were foraging for a new food supply for our Love Bird, Pepe, we spied some new environmental enhancements for his cage(er, living habitat). An attachable, edible, beak sharpening branch to enhance his hunting and pecking skills and a beautiful red ring the size of a large swing with a bell hanging from it to accompany his visions of swinging in a tree in the jungle! After fighting the strong currents of traffic on the asphalt river to arrive back at camp, I proceeded to “green up” Pepe’s habitat. Well, as soon as I brought one of these strange new objects in through the door, he was having none of this! With wings of steel, he squeezed through as space so small I couldn’t see it without my glasses and off he went into the wild blue(uh, wondrous air spaces) in our house! Sooo… armed with nothing but a couple of soft towels and a non threatening, wooden back scratcher, we set out on a find and capture expedition that should have aired on “Wild Kingdom”! Through sheer strength and maneuvering on our part, we began to wear down the resolve of our adversary! At one point, I had to hit the switch for the overhead fan with the swift dexterity of a gazelle to extricate the fowl winged beast from his perch without flinging him into the wall! After many attempts to cast our nets(ugh, towels) over our ungrateful friend, I guess he just valued his newly found freedom too much, he finally managed to fly into the side of a cliff(wall) and wedged himself between it and a large bookcase! After great thought about our dilemma, we decided to pull one end away from the wall, then I proceeded into the dark recess with my trusty little belt flash light and towel. Much to my chagrin, the little beggar pushed forward behind the next book case! So with great trepidation, I place the towel next to this opening with one hand, and with the other, proceeded to simulate the tremors of a minor quake to the other case! Low and behold, I saw a small red and green streak flash into the towel and voila, I had him! So I transported him to his home and gently extracted him into his own, familiar environment with the new additions and left him to himself to get used to them. I came back a little later hoping to catch him happily swinging on his new swing only to catch him soundly sleeping away, totally oblivious to his new toys! oh well, so much for the great jungle experience!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

New Mexico Vacation

Hello to all!
We made it to Silver City and Lake Roberts ok. We pulled into Silver City on Saturday at about 3pm. The first place we stopped was the internet cafe for coffee (Patty had water) and web surfing. Also checking out the locals. Interesting, seems to be a lot of old hippies hanging around. The local biker bar is about two doors down, and both the bar and coffee house have chairs out front on the sidewalk which makes for a colorful old town sidewalk cafe type of atmosphere!
We are sitting here in our little cabin in the mountain resort of Lake Roberts, watching a few of the hundreds of humming birds in the area checking out the hanging chiles on our front porch, they can't seem to find the feeder holes! This is Tues. morning, and we have already been to many places around the area, so far, we like the area alot and are considering it as a possible future retirement move. The pace here is much slower than LA,
of course that wouldn't take much!
We drove over a winding mountain road yesterday to Truth or Consequences, whew! What an experience! It took us an hour and a half to drive 30 miles. Didn't think too much of this town, although we did have an excellent Mexican dinner at a local restaurant! Needless to say, we took a different route back even though it was the long way around! By doing this, we ended up driving through Hatch, which is world famous for it's chiles. This is where we got the hanging chiles which are teasing the hummers, and a jar of green chile salsa.
Yesterday evening, we were sitting on the porch and four deer came walking across the road and grazed on our front lawn! It is just beautiful and so quiet up here!
We are going back into Silver City today to checkout some of the real estate in the area.
Tomorrow, we plan to go up the road from our cabin to check out some cliff dwellings and hot springs.
Guess I'll go for now'
Bill & Pat