Inspired by Jen's Birthday Celebration and her new Ocean Dreams Bundle.

Inspired by Jen's new Ocean Dreams Bundle.

AUGUST 2024 Challenge Layouts Links: Challenge 1: One Word https://oscraps.com/community/media/1-summer.396639/ Challenge 2: Mood Board Challengehttps://oscraps.com/community/media/2-bunny-days.396543/ Challenge 3: Quote to Wordart https://oscraps.com/community/media/3-may-you-live.396321/...

There was nothing to do but watch the evening hailstorm destroy our flowers and leave debris everywhere. But at least we knew the flowers would come back quickly. That was on the 21st. Then on the 23rd I got two new shoulder injections with hallucinations for the rest of the week.

We loved those jeep roads, alpine flowers and occasional wildlife, but it just got harder and harder to get jazzed up about making a hotel reservation at any of the few options in affordable places. I loved the camping trips and wished for more. Very slowly we got old.

We were so fortunate to find that place with all the different types of mushrooms. We agreed it was magical, how we explored by the river and just wandered up that dark hillside on the opposite side of the road and found all those sizes and types of mushrooms in such a small patch.

On our visits to Alamosa for five days in each of eight months, we went to MVNWR before sunrise on four mornings each trip. That works out to 32 chances to see the sunrise over the Great Sand Dunes. I think of them as lottery tickets,

Wow! Thank you. I believe in journaling, 100% and I'm always happy to see those that get it. ;)

John sent us a video his brother in California made, of Big Boy making its way home. It wasn't very long and it's not even the same train, but it brought back all the intensity of sitting in the head of the 844 behind the engineer and having the flames belching out at me from the firebox.

I always looked for ducks before sunrise on the golden water. And I always looked north from the south pullout just as we left the refuge.Finally I got lucky and not only saw a heron flying over that water, but reacted fast enough to get the photo. It was a good day!

The one thing that intrigued me most all that week, as the interactions I saw between a pair of herons and a yellow-headed blackbird. It made sense when the blackbird chased the heron, but I was pretty surprised when on another day the blackbird flew off with the pair without a fuss.

Inspired by Jenn's new collection and the flowers we planted.

Up at 4:30 am every day, we didn't see anyone on the refuge. I thought often about the idea that it was the fourth and we had it to ourselves. Early to bed, the firewords woke me very briefly. I could hear them but our room faced north and they were to the east. I fell right back to sleep.

Also on Wednesday there was this one female yellow-headed blackbird that didn't fly away when we got close. At first she seemed shy, but soon was comfortable and flew higher on the reeds, enjoying the attention. Then she was actually mugging for my camera, for a couple of minutes.

It is legal. They lease the land because some in government will cut the fat in their budget to the bone and insist on this as a solution, until they get their wishes to sell off all the public lands in the American West to the wealthiest barons, little by little and then more. I felt fine...

They were deep in the bulrushes, and I was excited when I saw that my camera could focus on them all the way over on that far shore. They were very active, and most of them were well-hidden. They build their nests in the hard-stem bulrushes.

In the fall I was overwhelmed by the huge variety of interesting seed pods on the refuge. I decided to pay more attention in the middle of summer, to what might change a lot in the fall. I spent way too much time on this one grass, and all I know is that it's likely to be invasive.

We had seen new fencing at Alamosa refuge in the fall, but no signs of grazing permits issued until our July trip. There were hundreds of sheep and goats, all packed closely together.Two herding dogs crossed a ditch to get to us, and we saw one sheepherder carrying a cellphone.

There were heavy clouds and the forecast called for rain later. But when we got to the refuge it was raining. We had always opted not to go when it rained, but there we were. And since it was new to us, we both had a great time. I couldn't believe I was standing in the rain, but I loved it.

I thought I recognized the low-growing orange flowers but hadn't seen them in a long time, and these flowers were bigger than the ones I had seen in Utah. So I looked them up and was so happy that I had new resources for identifying plants, that didn't exist even a few years ago.