Home Sweet Home

The Explorer enjoying her snow covered deck. Photo taken looking east toward Loveland.

On Saturday…

After six months of traveling in parts of the southern United States during the fall and winter months, we are back home! It is wonderful to leave on an adventure and it is also wonderful to return home. Howard and I look forward to returning to our at-home-routine, enjoying our beautiful community, and doing things we don’t get to do while on the road. It has been a tiring first week back, coach unloaded and winterized, house cleaned and things put away, clothes washed, bird feeders hung, but also a fun one! I also forgot to mention, being back in the BEST Time Zone is wonderful and leaving the high humidity behind for awhile is so satisfying.

During our time on the road we enjoyed visiting with family and friends, staying at and exploring new places, and returning to favorite ones. If you have been following my blog you know we love staying at State Parks and during this trip we stayed at several new ones. See list below.

This morning…

Our home sits on a hill at 5000 feet and the area has been known to receive late fall and early spring snow storms. We woke this morning to a snow covered landscape; it wasn’t much, but enough to blanket the area with beauty. It has been many months since we have seen snow and I have to say it was delightful being outside this morning!

Some of my blogger friends have experienced a severe, snowy, winter and they will probably think I am crazy for enjoying this early spring snow. {grins}

Snow covered new leaves. — Spring Leaves

Street view of our house.

Howard’s ham radio antenna still standing. He is always glad to see it standing.

Back yard, mostly hill side. Photo taken looking west.

Photo taken from the street looking south west.

Steep drive way

Tulips are trying to grow.

Following is a list of the Florida State Parks we visited for the first time:

~Highlands Hammock

~Fort De Soto (Florida County Park)

~Lake Manatee

~Myakka River

~Ross Prairie

~Manatee Springs

~Little Manatee River

~Alafia River

The last six months has been an exciting time for me, enjoying my two favorite hobbies: Birding and Photography. On this trip, I added eleven new birds to my Birding Life List:

~Sandwich Tern

~American Oystercatcher

~Reddish Egret

~Semipalmated Plover

~Least Sandpiper

~Dunlin

~Short-billed Dowitcher

~Common Tern

~Limpkin

~Black-bellied Whistling Duck

~Blue-headed Vireo

The Rambling Rose…

Our old 1998 Beaver Marquis motor coach, performed faultlessly and we are thankful for that. She got us safely where we wanted to go. Here she is sitting at one of our favorite Florida State Parks.

Until next time….

Enjoy your day, where ever you might be!

Here is Loveland, Colorado we are experiencing our second snow storm within a week. Last week it snowed for three days straight leaving us with an accumulation of two feet. This storm, which started mid-morning, will have accumulations of 4 to 6 inches continuing over night.

During the storm last week I found two frozen Mountain Blue Birds. I think they were migrating through Loveland to higher elevations in Rocky Mountain National Park and sorry to say got caught in this usual spring weather. It left me feeling very sad.

We have several juniper trees that produce berries and the Robins and Townsend’s Solitaire are enjoying them during these snow storms!

We have always made a conscience effort to plant trees, scrubs and flowers in our yard that produce food for wildlife and it has always paid us back with many colorful creature visits!