This is my new favorite! I thought a bear was getting into my hummingbird feeders, at night.....but my neighbor caught this picture.......AHA! the culprit!

This was just several snapshots I had, to show the interesting critters around here. From Bluejays, to woodpeckers, to great bucks and a really pretty butterfly or moth, I don't know which.

Well.....the newest stress factor......I went to lunch with a girlfriend and came home to pavers and asphalt trucks! It seems that Jimmy had our lot next door and the front of our lot, asphalted!
It turned out nice, but was several thousands, without talking to me first....needless to say I was furious!

On the morning of the 30th, we got a phone call saying that the shop yard, chain link fence gate (in Texas) had been pulled down and one of the freightliner trucks had been stolen. (The shop has been there 10 years with no issues). Luckily, we have satellite tracking and even though someone cut the antenna wire, as they were going down the road.....they didn't cut the power wire! So all we had to do was triangulate the last ping of a celltower and we found the truck 14 miles away, the next day! See the red dot above... pretty cool, huh?

On August 28, I woke up feeling especially achy and would love to slip into a hot bath....one problem, no bathtub up here....only shower.
We have even joined the local Ruidoso Athletic Club, just so that I could sit in their jacuzzi.
Anyway, Jimmy has been trying to talk me into a hot tub, and I finally broke down....but only if it fit in the 5'7" X 5'7" spot where I wanted to put it.
Well, Holy Crow.......they had a 2 person hot tub! We went to Discount Spas in Alamorgordo, NM.
Anyway, we loaded it up in the back of the pickup truck and drove home to Alto.
I was soaking the next morning! Jimmy had also recently fallen off a ladder and really tore up his shoulder, so it felt great for him, too.

ooohhhh! Look what was about 20 feet away from my back deck!

Well, after several different nights of one of the bucks deciding that he wanted sweet water, and destroying my hummingbird feeders.....I came up with a new idea. I've got all 4 feeders on a pole that can raise and lower with a rope......now, no one can reach them except the birds! I thought I was pretty smart!!!

Two of the babies came back! The momma was still feeding them, but they were in the tree in my front yard, today!

I have been watching this little bird nest right over my front door, since there were 4 eggs! The babies have grown like weeds, then yesterday...they all slowly left, one by one! The final picture was one of the babies, sitting on the chair, next to me! Not scared of us, since we came and went out the door all the time. SOOOOO cute!

Well, last weekend was a very interesting Saturday night! After we had eaten dinner at the Kokopelli Club, Jimmy noticed that they were setting up for a game of Nite-golf!
So he called our friend Bret and his son Bronson to come play....what a hoot! Once the moon came up, it wasn't so bad....but until then it was REALLY dark~!
As the golf balls flew, they looked like a shooting star! Lots of fun, tho'!

In our little bitty bedroom on the deck...I decided that we needed more room, so I asked Jimmy to build a Murphy Bed. When no one is visiting, Jimmy can fold it up and open the desk, for his office. Pretty cool, huh?

At the end of June, The Woodwinds Gang got together for a finger food get-together....It was fun, we solved all the problems of the world!

I bought several hummingbird feeders, because, it seems that there wasn't enough room at the inn!

We were sitting at the Sonic, in the beautiful downtown Ruidoso...when a terrible fire broke out, right across the highway behind the K-Bob's! They even had a plane come in and drop slurry!

Well....here is Jimmy's latest project. A toolshed/garage for the golf cart......it is 12 X 14....nearly the size of the deck! it even has an attic, for more storage. (sigh) the king of overkill....has made it so strong, the deck could blow down before the toolshed will.....we had to have a foundation of almost 3 yards of concrete!

I just got a book on the birds of New Mexico, so I could identify all the ones I see, so far, I've seen the Scott's Oriole, wild turkeys, Red Crossbill, Downy Woodpecker, some type of Nuthatch (known for running headfirst down a treetrunk) and of course Black chinned hummingbirds, Broad tailed hummingbirds, and Rufous hummingbirds (the smaller orange ones). I've also seen Blue Jays...but don't have a picture, yet.

After realizing that a 3,000 square foot house in Texas doesn't fit in a deck in New Mexico very well, Jimmy has decided to tear down and rebuild the toolshed....much bigger! Storage for lots of stuff, and, Oh By The Way.....a garage for his golf cart.....
in the meantime, our friend Robert from Fort Worth, drove in to give Jimmy a hand in framing it.

Pine needle pick up season again!
Jimmy used the maintenance golf cart (not his new one) to load up pine needles and take them to the dump. then came my setting up bird feeders and planting flowers in pots! I'll post more soon!

While driving to El Paso for dinner, I got a good shot of the KTSM Antenna tower and the Aerial Tramway that my daddy built back in the 60s. The Tramway system goes down the other side of the mountain....quite a fete at the time. my dad and brothers and workers went up and down the mountain on a platform and a cable, to build it. The actual TV tower had giant bolts that needed to be tightened every few days, in the beginning, because the wind made the tower sway! Now, of course, there is a cable car.....and last I heard, it was no longer running........BUT, the big thing at the time, was that you could see 3 states and 2 countries! (Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico!)

Headed back to the mountains at the end of the week.