Category Archives: Critters

Literally, not a cloud in the sky. Anywhere. And shades of blue that I never, ever saw in LA.

It’s definitely different up here in the High Desert, but we’re getting used to it. Mostly good stuff. While waiting to be seated for breakfast on Sunday, we saw an ambulance go buy, lights & siren blaring. It occurred to me that it was the first time I had seen anything like that in almost four weeks here. To my memory, I’ve only heard sirens out on the main road (a block away) twice. Between our two homes in LA for almost 35 years, it was a daily occurrence, or more. Granted, we lived near a couple of fire stations and a large hospital, but still…

The population up here is about 550,000 for Victorville, Apple Valley, Hesperia, and the unincorporated areas like Oak Hills combined. I haven’t gathered the statistics or gone looking for them online, but it sure feels like it’s a lot less hectic and stressed.

The other thing you might notice is that the second hummingbird feeder is up. Hummer2 is active and getting traffic, sometimes at the same time as Hummer1. The most I’ve ever seen is four hummers out there flitting about and feeding at once, but I’m hoping that will grow.

No additional sighting of the owl there was out there at sunset a few days ago, and very few finches are around. A bunch of crows, some pigeons, but no hawks at all, which surprises me. We did see a huge turkey vulture circling a few hundred feet up, but it never came down closer.

Also no small critters seen at all. No squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, or gophers (thank god!!). Also no lizards at all, which I find very odd. We’re surrounded by open desert, have rocks and “desert landscaping” everywhere, and when we were house hunting there were plenty of places where I saw fence lizards, just like in LA. But here, not a single one yet.

We have plenty of black widows outside (it looks like the house has been empty and unoccupied for a while before we bought it, so there hasn’t been much of that light maintenance) but I’m mowing them down like waves of wheat, so they shouldn’t be a problem for long. And no snakes that I’ve seen, although I’m sure they’re out there in the more undeveloped, wilderness areas. I’ll keep an eye open for them if I go hiking or walking and I’ll leave them alone if they do the same for me.

Have I ever told “the snake story” here? Maybe another night…

I thought it was supposed to be up in triple digits this week, but today was lovely. Mid 80’s, toasty in the sun but wonderful in the shade with a nice breeze, keeping the wind chimes active outside my office. And that blue sky!

A substantial chunk of our moving budget has been spent at one of the local UHaul locations (who have been wonderful, to be clear) and in the office there they have these two large, colorful, and loud birds. Macaws?

Today when I was dropping off the latest truck that I finished unloading last night, the two of them were out of their cages and wandering loose.

I wouldn’t describe either as “calm,” but at least the green one kept its distance for the most part and minded its own business.

The red dude literally knocked over a full sized broom that had been left leaning against the wall, then picked it up in its beak and started trying to chase me around with it. As much as I didn’t have “being beaten in the shins by a macaw with a broom” on today’s bingo card, I stood my ground and got glared at for my trouble.

They were gorgous. I went home and spent a very decent chunk of the day sitting on my ass and trying to recover a bit instead of unloading and unpacking and trying to bring order out of chaos. I remain confident that the chaos will still be there tomorrow. I do not expect the house elves to sort it all out for me while I sleep tonight.