Raven’s RV
The ongoing education and adventures of two rank newbie RVers

Jun 14, 2008

Fenced in

Filed in Blog

The last couple of days have ushered in some of the blazing Redding heat with which I became familiar on my last visit here, in July 2001. We do without a/c as best we can, but there’s a point in the afternoon where it has to go on. ;)

Today we helped reroute an electric fence for our landlady’s horses. I think I’m going to call her Kerry in this blog, because it’s a nice name and it kind of suits her. And her boyfriend can be Jim. They invited us to pizza tonight and when this blog post is up it’ll be about time to wander up.

I did go for my walk yesterday, checking out the BLM lands and it worked–my shoulder relaxed and the muscles unknotted. Thank goodness for that! There was this guy sitting there and I thought he was some kind of hippy, but he was still there on the way back, looking through his binoculars at what turned out to be a golden eagle. I was going to pass behind him but he spoke to me and we ended up chatting for the next thirty or so minutes.

There’s a project to revert the Trinity River as much back to its natural state as possible. Many different agencies are involved and work together with the university over at Arcata, on the coast. He’s actually an employee and his job is to help survey the avian life; there are something like 400 points along the river where someone is supposed to sit and tally what he sees.

So, I got an impromptu lesson in all the different birds, some by sight and some by sound. I know now what an acorn woodpecker sounds like (and on a walk where I saw a red-headed bird I know now what kind it was); I also know the names of many birds I’d never heard of before (the junco springs to mind). So you see, it’s amazing what you find out in the wilderness just by stopping and chatting to people. :)

Anyway, the fencing job involved clearing some tree junk and hammering poles and putting up little plastic holders for the wires; and now the horses are happily munching and we’re not bothered by them and they’re not stuck in the corral. Everyone is happy.

The mosquitos are grim, though. You know how some charities “sell” products–so you send a donation of X amount and buy a cow in someone’s name, etc–stuff that helps people? Well, this year everyone is getting honorary mosquito nets from me. I have at least thirty bites scattered around my body. The worst one is on my ear. I used to laugh at those people who bought “outdoor rooms” for their camp–little frames strung up with bug netting.

I laugh at them no more. ;)