Colorado Air Force Academy

We've been "settled" in Colorado Springs since the 19th of this month and we're here til the 19th of July. After
that we must find a new place to park, the rules say we can only stay 30 days at the Air Force Academy in the
summer. It's beautiful here, tall pines, cool days and pull up the covers at night! We've had the AC on maybe twice, AND used heat once, yep, and it felt real good! Took Dave four hours to set up the Dish, he didn't care about the tall pines that day. Our site is on the end of a row and really spacious, lots of wildlife around. There's black bears here so the feeders must be brought inside every night, don't want to intice the critters to come into camp. A Ranger told us he saw a bear on the roadway by the lake where Dave was fishing
yesterday. Made me take notice of my surroundings after that! The birds have me trained to get up and
hang the feeders, they make so much noise there's no more sleeping. There's Black -headed
Grosbeaks, Magpies, Stellar Jays, Pine Siskin, Cowbirds, White-breasted Nuthatches, Pygmy Nuthatches,
Cassin Finches, Western Bluebirds and of course the hummers, Black-chinned and Broad-tailed.
I love this picture of the female Broad-tail, best hummer picture I've ever snapped. These little birds are
consuming a half gallon of sugar water everyday at our four feeders and other people have feeders up
as well. Now we're up to date, I apologize to anyone that's been checking in to find I haven't kept my word.
Until next time, love and hugs to anyone reading this.

Butchart Gardens

Finally I'm going to stick with updating the blog until it's done! Our grandson's graduation cruise was diverted from the Mexican Riviera to Canada because of the Swine Flu so we got to see the world famous Butchart Gardens. The gardens were started over a hundred years ago by Jennie Butchart to beautify a worked out limestone quarry, and they're still family owned today. The gardening became a hobby for Jennie and she worked long hours along side her helpers. The story goes that back in the early days word began to spread about the beautiful gardens and people would come wanting to walk through them. Jennie would graciously
provide "tea" for the visitors. Today there's fountains and a gift shop, even an ice cream shop. The gardens cover 55 acres, if a plant "looks sick" another replaces it immediately, the whole garden is continuously scanned. Canada is beautiful and flowers, flowers everywhere. Victoria, BC, and Vancouver, BC are both beautiful,
clean cities. Vancouver is definitely metropolitan. One thing that caught my attention was that even the
condos had planter boxes on the balconies. It's a gardeners paradise!