A-Birding I did Go...

...in continuance of the trip to see the waterfalls I thought I'd share the birds I enjoyed seeing. 

First in my sisters back yard she gets birds on her feeders I never get even tho those species are in my yard...Like Blue Birds!

a small family of them are always eating at my sis's feeders! I've tried buying the same seed, but still I don't get bluebirds show up to eat it...then an American Robin jumped on for snacks...

a red-bellied woodpecker waited in the wings for a turn at the feeder...

and I saw several yellow rump warblers at the feeders too!

Then over at Oak Grove and the lake there from Oak Creek...I saw the usual fare of ducks this one gave me a decent bath sequence...which was fun 

Then he glided off with a friend...

then.......The Race WAS ON....

The Geese are nesting so any intrusion was not tolerated and a chase ensued....only the fastest would escape without a honking big bite on the rear!!
I've been bitten by a goose it does hurt...

...and this red tail was making sure everyone stayed on their toes!!

The large flock of ring billed gulls that was around on my last visit has dwindled down to only one or two...I like gulls because they tolerate humans pretty well...

Brown headed cowbirds were around as well as Carolina Wrens..

More Eastern Bluebirds....

                  These guys were so back-lit I couldn't tell if they're barn, bank, or other! Either way they're swallows!

I wanted this to be a Eastern Wood Peewee but I think its an Eastern Phoebe..

...and its just not birding without a northern cardinal to brighten things up

Spring arrival....

and this killdeer wad very leery of my intentions...

and several hundred people flew over the lake....

and one totally aggravating Belted Kingfisher who wouldn't be still long enough for any kind of shot... so ended up with this extreme crop job...

How annoying is that? All in all it was a good day of birding for me!!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

First Waterfall Hike 2014

I did one waterfall hike so far this yr. It wasnt exactly a bust, but it was close...I will explain.

The trail I picked was part of the Foothills Trial the Sloan Bridge section.  There was 2 falls on this section so great check 2 off the list.  I knew I had to take both dogs and was a little leery because of the injuries I know how the dogs can get sometimes...but Flossie is pretty good off leash and thats what I decided to do. 

Annie is the one who likes to run off into the thick stuff and she can disappear so fast....so she has to stay on leash on a steep narrow trail like this one was..

                            

This is exactly the kind of trail I dont like...narrow. lots of roots, and lots of blow-downs! SO visibility is not so good and its hard since bushwhacking could mean a broken ankle trying to get down the edge of the Chattooga River below. Check out this large tree that was on the trail...

Got a peek through the bushes at the second tier of the falls Sloan Bridge, it has an upper drop I couldnt see....I could only hear those and didnt get a look...if I hadnt had the dogs I may have gone down and waded up the river to find it but with them and Annie on leash it was not possible.

The second falls is a 30 ft tiered falls called Hikers Peril, the trail used to cross the top of the falls but with so much blow down around the trail was moved to the bottom of the falls....and since the trail passes right in front of the falls on a little foot bridge, I couldn't back up and shoot the entire thing! SO I did a couple section shots, the water level was low on this falls which surprised me since we've had so much rain, upstate maybe they didn't have as much as we've had  in my local area..

Its always good to be in the woods no matter! It was 2 miles round trip...The weather was awesome for sure.

So after we hiked we stopped at the fish hatchery that we passed on the way up...There's fish in various stages of development in the swim ways...I think these are brown trout. They sure were crowded in there!!

Dont ask me why I got only part of this sign...I was distracted by the dogs I guess..Its the Wahalla State Fish Hatchery...the road down is a thrilling hairpin drive! Narrow, and steep!! The building is in the "holler" as they call it here in Utah its a canyon, in Texas its a gulch, in Tennessee its a Gulf...so anyways its at the bottom!!

Next time I'll show some of the birds we spotted...Maggie hates car trips something they are working on, but so far unless its a trip to the vet or to come to our house she stays home...

So now that makes 35 SC Waterfalls I've hiked in the Upstate Region. Many of the remaining ones are on private land so I dont know If make it to those...but now Im down to the Difficult hard ones, and a few roadside ones...it will be fun to find them. 

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.

Windshield Wipers-- You Wear Diapers-!!!

Back from a week away, dog sitting for my sis...and wouldn't you know the day we had to drive back home it poured rain!!  AND then my drivers windshield wiper spazZzed out on me! It literally flew off to the far left and was hitting the side view mirror and got stuck!! I stopped, got soaked, tried to put it back in place went another mile and it did it again!! WTF? Okay that confirms it~Everything does NOT happen for a reason...holy-cow.

So I did what any red blooded American woman would do....I improvised! It's Sunday afternoon in the Deep South, there was not a chance in Hell Fire and Brimestone of me finding a garage open...may as well have driven into Mayberry RFD. So I stopped at a Citgo where 2 men from Pakistan, with big smiles and smart phones  looked at me as if I had fallen outta the sky with the rain...I went to the shelf and bought a bottle of Rain-X, best damned stuff ever invented.( buy some of this and keep it IN your car)  I pulled under the gas pump area out of the rain, dried the window off, squirted a copious amount of the fluid on the window, smeared it all over with a paper towel and let it dry to a haze then buffed it off...

Worked like a charm... as long as you're moving, and on the I-26 everyone was going 80! I went 65 and the wind blew the pelting rain right off the windshield. I couldn't use the wipers at ALL! My Mom thought I was crazy, but when she saw the water gliding off the windshield with NO wipers she was amazed!!  So 2 hrs driving in a blinding rain storm with no wipers can we say White Knuckles?? My newly formed wrist bones were aching and still are...

But anyways you know me, this morning I watched a you tube on how to repair the wiper, this guy said that the wiper has a thin sheet of aluminum lining on the wiper arm where it attaches to the car, and it gets corroded, so start by removing the plastic cover at the end of the wiper, this photo is the other one, cause I forgot to take a photo of the drivers side one before I removed it, 

under that plastic cover is a 13mm nut, remove that and then the wiper arm comes right off...tilt it up like you do when you clean the windshield and then lift it off the "drive spine"

 See all the corrosion? the little grooves have to be cleaned out so I scraped them out using a utility blade and a wire brush...then I sprayed it with W-D40 to knock the green corrosion off...

Here it is after cleaning it....

Reattach the arm keeping it level with the other arm, and replace the nut and tighten...I tapped the arm back on with a hammer to set it good down in that aluminum...

Then snap the plastic cover back on....

Give it a try....

Looks good now, before it was going way over past the side mirror! The guy said its caused when you clean snow off your wipers and you bang them too hard....GUILTY AS CHARGED on that one!

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.