Thursday - rain and fuzzy pictures

It rained all night.  It rained most of the day.  The mountains that make up our windshield view were shrouded in clouds.   Thank goodness there is plenty of grass around us so the dogs didn't bring in too much mud this morning.    Second cup inside, definitely..  The dogs don't mind, as long as they're with us.

sleepy kind of day

cuddly kind of day

We dashed, between the raindrops, to the little clubhouse for lunch.   Bad Suzi.   I won't tell you what I had for lunch, except it involved cheese and ended with Haagen Dazs.   Don't judge me.

We wondered who comes and plays golf here, hardly anyone lives in Likely and we didn't see many signs of life on our way here, so we drove north on 395 towards the county seat of Alturas to see what kind of a city it was.   We stopped at their grocery store for milk, drove past the airport, and generally looked around.  We still don't know who plays golf here at Likely.    I guess some things you're not supposed to know!

Dave thought this was an interesting name

the flower thief strikes again....

On our way back to Beluga, we ventured off 395 onto a narrow county road that led into the Modoc Wildlife Refuge.  Small pleasures.   We drove slowly along with our windows open, the ones that didn't let rain in, listening to the different bird songs and trying to see who was singing.   We must be getting old, we laughed and talked and really enjoyed our drive.  Most of the pictures I took are pretty fuzzy, the subjects were far away.  My poor little camera lens grinds out and in, the jeeps windows grind up and down.  Everything sounds like it is filled with dirt, probably is.   I cross my fingers every time I turn the camera on.

We passed a couple of small herds of pronghorn.  The one below was by herself, I wonder if she was getting ready to give birth...

pronghorn

These youngsters were stretching their legs and wings and jostling around in the nest when we passed them the first time.   Mom looked on from above.   On our way back, it was raining pretty hard and Mom was sitting on the nest with her wings spred over her kids, trying to shield them from the downpour.

as soon as we stopped the car, this mom hustled her babies under the reeds at the edge of the pond and sat very very still til we drove away.   

this pair of Sandhill Cranes had two teeny orange babies racing around under their feet.

I was unduly excited to actually see a Meadow Lark instead of just hearing it

Cinnamon Teal watching us warily

yearlings in a nearby pasture

bless her pointed little head!

OK, not all the pictures are fuzzy

He steals such beautiful flowers for me