Our Bird and Lizard Pets

From where we live, the Mimbres river is about five miles away, as the crow flies. But from what I hear, the Mimbres is mostly an underground river, only showing itself above ground during the monsoon season when the river can be high and therefore moves up where it can show itself. Basically, I don’t know what I’m talking about except I know where it is because someone finally pointed out this oddly striped, long hill in the distance that everyone calls “Rattlesnake Ridge or Hill” or some such thing. So I suppose the water is close enough that the birds can find a drink of water when they need it either from the river or from the cow tank about a quarter mile from our place.

But when it’s 100 degrees and up it’s just hot and sad for those birdies. They sometimes are there one day and you find them dead the next, from lack of food or water. They LOVE our place now because there’s:

A. Lots-o-shade from all the buildings/structures
B. There’s bird seed!
C. There’s a bird bath
D. There are 2 beings that they must assume are just large birds

When we first started working on the property in May, I rarely saw a bird anywhere. I wondered if there really were any around or if it was simply too wild out there for them. After we got the fence in, they started coming in and sitting on the fence line (which is super sweet). Then, I hung a bird feeder in the only mesquite tree we have and a few more came and lizards began to come too.

I have a bird bath that I’d taken apart and sat on the ground as you see here. Later I realized that rattlesnakes would also love it, so I reassembled it so that only the birds can partake of the water.

We were sitting in the courtyard one night and a few birds flew in to sit in the shade. It was so hot out, they partly opened their wings and sat there heaving with their little beaks open until they cooled down, then they’d stand there for at least an hour, watching us, not moving a centimeter.

After around an hour (And every single bird that comes does pretty much the same thing. It’s like they have little birdy pocket watches or something.), they’d see we weren’t interested in killing them and we could walk around them doing our work-3 feet away from them and they wouldn’t move from their pocket in the shade. Then they’d find the bird seed that’s scattered throughout the gravel and would have a party having a snack, then they’d find the birdbath at last, several hours later. It’s so cool watching them drink and take baths on a hot, hot day. I know it must feel like heaven to them.

So now, at any give time, we have many lizards hanging around, sunning themselves on the cement bricks that line the buildings and about four or five birds at a time including a beautiful road runner who started coming just about two days before we had to leave. I hope he’s still hanging around when we get home.

We were having dinner and this little bird went through the whole above scenario and then decided we were his parents or his best friends. He started walking no more than 2″ away from where our feet were as we sat watching him, with not a care in the world. We were marveling at that when he hopped up on the handle of a hoe beside me so he could be closer to us.

I was all big-eyed and just as I said to Jeff, it’s like he wants to climb into my lap and have me pet him, he jumped up on the arm of my chair! Jeff moved very slowly to get a picture but the little guy was spooked so he moved to the back of the chair right beside me.

He sat there and fell asleep while we talked, his little eyelids just slipping down. He was uber cute!

We aren’t intending to have pets out at the property as anything small will be eaten by coyotes, so birds and lizards will have to do. But who knew they had so much personality?

One day we had a bird with a foot that must have been crippled in his birdy youth. He got around just fine, it just was a little clumsy. He stayed around for two full days, eating and drinking, resting in the shade and then one day he just cheeped out one time, which surprised me so I turned around to look and he flew off and never came back. Maybe we’re in a flight pattern or something?

I did find a few more photos, though not good ones. This one shows the garage in place before we had it raised up a full foot and put a “foundation” beneath it of bricks.

And here’s a shot of another 15 tons of gravel we had to spread around. We got all but about 4 tons of it spread out, so hopefully we’ll get that done in November.

A graveled courtyard is 10,000 times better than a dirt courtyard. It’s amazing how much the gravel keeps the dust down when the wind blows.

We got that grill for free because when we moved into the Albuquerque house, the previous owners had left it there. We’ve had it for several years now and the propane has never run out, that’s how seldom we use it. But we use it now! It’s turning out to be quite handy to fire up the grill and put a pot onto cook outdoors, because even cooking oatmeal inside the camper can get the whole camper pretty hot in the summer. It’s our “outdoor kitchen” now. I need to figure out how to grill veggies and black bean burgers made from scratch on it without them slipping down through the grill. Aluminum foil? A cooking sheet? I need ideas, people. I’m sure it can be done, I’ve just never given it a shot. I know that women in the past often had outdoor stoves so that they could do their canning outside instead of inside where they’d be suffocated from the heat of the fire. So having that grill gives us the best of both worlds. Once I learn how to use it.

It kills me to look at these pictures and to know that we’ll only get to be home for about one DAY during our final move in two weeks. But, I remind myself, quite vehemently, that it’s just meant to be, that we have other things to do right now. And, we get to be home for about 2 1/2 weeks at Christmas, so I’m living for that. And in late January or February, I’m staying home for sure! The weather here in Washington is starting to affect me and I need the sunshine to stay on top of my game. But it’s lovely to be here with family, so all things in their time.