Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Have you heard the Crackle of the Grackle?

So there we sat for a couple of nights at the SKP RoVers' Roost Park in Casa Grande. Compared to our Benson Co-op, this is a small park, about half as many sites, and each site about half as large as ours. But they are a closely knit group. They even sell Tee-Shirts with their logo on them! We bought a couple for ourselves.

As we sat out for our own Happy Hour-and-a-half under the tall pine tree behind our site, we looked at the Organ Pipe cactus and listened to the grackles.

Now, grackles are not our favorite bird; they are noisy, very noisy. But their noise is a wonder in itself. Grackles have a variety of calls and songs, and sometimes they sound like electronic instruments sending out alarms. There is no way I can describe these birds besides: noisy, raucous, absonant, acute, atonal, blaring, blatant, braying, brusque, cacophonous, discordant, dissonant, dry, ear-piercing, grating, grinding, gruff, harsh, hoarse, husky, inharmonious, jarring, loud, piercing, rasping, sharp, squawking, stertorous, strident, thick, unharmonious, unmusical. (I got those words from an on-line thesaurus, and they all apply. And if you click on any of the underlined words, you'll go right to a thesaurus to learn more words!) If you don't know Grackles -- this is the "Great-tailed Grackle."


But it was enjoyable listening to them! Nature has her own songs, and we have our own ears. So, to paraphrase the Bible, "Those who have ears, let them hear!"

But how did we get here? Well, when we started planning this part of the trip, we considered where to make our first stop. Picacho Peak? Picacho RV Park? Casa Grande's Western Horizons park? The Moose Club RV park in Arizona City? There were reasons for and against all of them, and we had been to all of them before. Then we remembered the SKP Co-op in Casa Grande, and that we had never visited this park. And for $15 a night, that's pretty good!

We drove across southern Arizona in 99 degree heat, using our dash A/C, but not the "house" A/C. When we arrived, we found that the chococlate Easter Bunny I had bought for Suzy had met his end, an ignominious end, in the heat of the drive. Poor "Professor!" He didn't deserve to die in this terrible fashion!

Professor's belly melted and collapsed! His thorax separated from his lungs and his cranial attachments! He sank into sad submission, and he succumbed.
Poor Professor! However, we are sure he will be as just tasty Easter Sunday! Poor Professor, but lucky us! He was to be Suzy's first-ever chocolate Easter Bunny in the 68 years of her life. And he still will be, in spite of his untimely demise.

And now we are in the North Ranch SKP Park in Congress, Arizona. How we got here and what we found, in the next edition of ... Our Life on Wheels!

9 comments:

  1. I hope she eats his ears first, and has many more bunnies in future years.

    I like the white chocolate ones myself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't think I've ever heard grackles enough to describe them to that extent. Don't know if I even want to, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Poor Professor Easter Bunny. Did you hear him call out in vain, "I'm melting...."?

    It's always fun to visit new RV parks. Some are gems, and some are not, but it looks like you found a good one and at a good price. I can't believe that there are still SKP parks that you haven't visited! :)

    Crackling grackles or grackling crackles or even plain old cackles--glad you enjoyed the noisy birds!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Our Grackles have not arrived yet but when they do they will once again bully their way to our bird feeders scaring off all others birds. They will then begin a scooping motion with their bills swooshing tons of bird seed out of the feeders onto the ground. I am convinced they do this just to be intentionally malicious. Grackles are not our favorite birds!! I had a chocolate Easter Bunny once but I ate him before he could melt off into the sunset:))

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maybe you could use the Professor for "somemores"..eh?? He's mostly melted, after all! Loved the way you described his demise!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Aw, poor Professor! Hope you have a nice Easter anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  7. All kinds of firsts in there. Never heard of a Grackle and did not know you could accumulate so many decades without having a chocolate bunny:)

    I think you made the right choice with the SKP park in Casa Grande. We have been to the western horizon park and it is okay,but I am sure you had more fun at the SKP park. Luckily we will not be members of Western Horizon Parks after the first of the year.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've probably heard Grackles and never realized what they were. I know Paulette and I heard odd screeching from birds around the park and wondered what it was - maybe Grackles?

    As for the chocolate bunny, a few hours in the freezer and it'll be as good as new. I love frozen chocolate!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm pretty sure I've heard a Grackle...once you've heard one, you remember their crackle:) Cannot imagine living that long without chocolate...LOL! Have a great Easter.

    ReplyDelete

Here's your chance to tell us what you think!