August

After Caitlyn finished unpacking all her stuff, Marian came over to see her and for a celebratory dinner. Caitlyn requested seafood, so we had shrimp chow mein for lunch and scallops for dinner. We took some of her extra clothes and things that she doesn't fit any more to DI to make room for all her stuff.

After all the work was done, Caitlyn and I went out one day to the San Joaquin Marsh to take pictures. After looking at a map of the place, we were surprised about how big it actually was. Christian said that we normally go in from a side or back entrance and have never actually been to the entrance! Caitlyn and I decided to go check that out. Even though we were a lot closer to the ocean, it was still pretty hot. There were only a couple of other cars there at the front parking lot.

Overall, we were not that impressed with the ponds in the front. There were not a ton of birds out and most of the ponds were totally inaccessible because of all the overgrown reeds and other plants. There are supposed to be a few viewing sights around the ponds but even those were over grown for the most part.

There were some young Clark's Grebes with their parents out on one pond. That was pretty neat. We also saw a few other birds with their baby or adolescent offspring.

There were a few of the usual suspects: Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Double-crested Cormorant and such but birds we saw the most of were the Black Skimmers.

Caitlyn brought a tri-pod but didn't have the proper adapter to use it so she ended up leaving it in the car and having to handhold her camera the whole time. Plus, after walking a bit, her shoe was rubbing and hurting her feet, so we decided to leave. We didn't exactly want to just turn around and go home only after a couple of hours though. We contemplated what else we could do and decided to just head for the beach, that way she could take her shoes off.

We ended up going back to Sunset Beach because we knew we could probably find parking there. We stopped by Bolsa Chica to see if the Sea Turtles were still around. Apparently, it was high tide, so there was not a lot there. After taking a peak to see what we could find, we continued our way to the beach.

There were more people at the beach than the last time we came, but we were still able to find parking. The beach itself has mostly disappeared into the ocean. There has been a lot of big waves lately and there is only a small, somewhat steep strip left, which was weird....at least compared to what it used to be like.

We walked down the beach a little ways but decided to head back at some point because we didn't want to get back too late or run into the worst of the traffic.

We decided to get a little pop-up photo blind to see if we could get pictures of the Orioles and other birds without them flying away or not coming down when we are there. It worked like a charm! We finally got better pictures of the Hooded Oriole's that have been feeding in our hummingbird feeders all summer.

I must admit though, that these young Oriole's are not as guarded as their parents were. They are still very skiddish...just not quite as insanely so as their parents were.

All in all, we are very satisfied with our results from our photography hide. It was really fun watching their antics of feeding and fighting with each other. I only wish it wasn't quite so hot so that we could use it more and that we didn't get bit up by mosquitos while sitting on our lawn. We are thoroughly tired of both the heat and mosquitos in general, both of which has been very brutal this year. We make sure that the bird bath stays filled for the poor birds. They seem to be enjoying it.

We recently bit the bullet and got ourselves a new photo printer. I'm pretty sure our old one was still working but we hadn't used it in a while and when we tried to get new ink for it, we found out that they are no longer supporting the printer and you can't get one of the colors any more! We were not very happy about that. It was not a cheap printer and we were probably a little too timid using it because the ink was kind of expensive. We tried having our prints made at Shutterfly earlier this year, but the results were less than satisfactory. We complained about it and they reprinted it, but we basically got the same results. They didn't even check over their printer or have some technician check over our prints. We used to get decent prints from them and have been using them for many years now for most of our everyday prints or a few special projects. Now I don't even trust them for the simplest project. So we have been spending a lot of time catching up on the prints that we want and are very happy with the results from our new photo printer. 

Meanwhile, Emily has been finding out that her time and money at BYU-I has been mostly wasted. She looked into transferring to one of the CSU campuses to finish her degree and found that most of her units will not be transferrable. She can either go back there to finish her degree (which she definitely doesn't want to do), or mostly start over from scratch...probably not completely, but I'm sure it will feel like it. She is very frustrated and discouraged.

Caitlyn has been on the hunt for a job with no prospects thus far. She is frustrated as well. She has been spending some of her time, brushing up and reinforcing some of the skills and knowledge she was supposed to learn at school.

Christian has been back to school for a month now and has spent the last days sick with the flu already. He has already used half his sick days for the year and he is only a month into the new school year. He is back to work because he can't afford not to be there but he is not well yet. While he was out, he heard that they might have had another lockdown on campus but he couldn't find any information about it. Even when it escalates to being covered on the news, it seems like they don't like to reveal to parents or the teachers that work there what is really going on. They usually just brush it under the rug or hide it. You get all kinds of stories going around in the general public but no real answers. It is pretty frustrating.

Despite all odds, the chickens are still alive and kicking. They have survived the heat so far and several attempts from coyotes and probably hawks. Christian recently caught sight of a Cooper's Hawk perched on top of their house! The trail cam has shown nightly visits from foxes, racoons, and possums. We know that there is also a neighborhood cat that stalks our yard of birds.

The chickens are nearly full grown now and should start laying eggs any day now!

There was a deep partial lunar eclipse at the end of the month, so we had gone out to capture it.

It was kind of neat but it was somewhat obscured by passing clouds initially and then by the time it started to clear up, we were sick of being eaten alive by the mosquitos...so yeah, fun times.

Did I mention that we are sick to death of the heat and mosquitos? The heat has also been making our refrigerator struggle. It has been stressful wondering if it is going to keep working or not. We pulled it out and cleaned all the dust around it but it doesn't seem to be helping enough.