A Few Errands

We got a call this morning from the office here at Rainbow Acres saying we had gotten a package in the mail and that they would be bringing it right over. Now that is service! Daughter Mary Mae did her usual job of packing and we got a very full box of mail. There were a couple of packages included that we had been waiting for. One was from Intuit with the upgrade for Quickbooks, the accounting software we use for ranch business. The other was from Ancestry.com with the DNA kit I had ordered. Since they have just come out with it for public use, they are limiting the kits to one per order. I am going to send this one in and then when they permit us to order another we'll do one for Forry (I just know there are some Vikings in that German's ancestry somewhere...).

We had a couple more new visitors to the feeders this morning. I had seen this beautiful yellow American Goldfinch over at the neighbor's and today it came over to visit our Nyger seed feeder.

 

This is the female of the Red-bellied Woodpecker. See how the red on her head does not come all the way down to the beak? (Note how the level of feed in the first feeder has dropped!)

Here's the picture of the male from a couple of days ago for comparison...

We did make a trip into town today. We went to the Post Office in King and Queen Courthouse to mail off a welcome present to our new Great-nephew Jackson Patrick -- and the DNA sample! Then we went on to a large Food Lion grocery store and re-supplied the kitchen. I got the makings to make Beef Stroganof that Forry's been asking for and for the makings of a pasta salad to take to Niece Daphne's tomorrow.

It is Friday of a holiday weekend and the campground is filling up. All of the empty sites near us were filled with trailers this afternoon and the air is full of wood smoke from the campfires. Many of the closed up sites have had their owners appear and this morning the sound of week-whackers and lawn mowers filled the air as they got their sites ready for the summer. There are lots of children running around -- and I haven't seen a single bird this afternoon...

Birds!

This week we are at Rainbow Acres Campground near King and Queen Courthouse, Virginia --

There really is a rainbow at the entrance to the campground --

We were awakened this morning by a great deal of chattering going on outside of Auntie Violet's windows --

These Eastern Bluebirds were having either quite a discussion -- or a squabble -- and picked our motor home and its awning as the place to do it!

These was already a hangar on a tree next to us, so we made haste and put up our bird feeders. The one on the left has a mixture of "colorful bird" seed while the one on the right is filled with Nyger Thistle seeds.

We soon had even more company! This little Carolina Chickadee climbed up and down the tree with quick hops over to the feeders --

Then this Tufted Titmouse came to call (you can barely see his top-notch against the wire) --

This White-Breasted Nuthatch would try to reach the feed without leaving the tree, then would make a quick hop, grab some seed and quickly fly back to the tree.

The Northern Cardinal wandered over to check out what was going on --

In addition to the ones I got pictures of, we saw a Brown Creeper, Robins, crows, a raven, a House Finch, a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, an American Goldfinch, a Ruby-Throated Hummingbird and a flock of geese flying over! This is a great place for watching birds!