Thrills 'n Spills

We have had a great couple of days!   We visited the 1000 Palms oasis Preserve which is located in the Coachella Valley.  This preserve is located in the northern edge of the Indio Hills and we could see the San Bernardino Mountains as well as the southern edge of Joshua Tree National Park.
This preserve contains a rare and fragile habitat - palm woodland oasis and desert wetland.  Water from the springs along the San Andreas earthquake fault feed perpetual water features in the form of seeps, creeks and ponds.  This water feeds the California fan palm and other desert plants.  It was hot when we began our walk.  We didn't even get 10 feet from the entrance when all of a sudden I was no longer on my feet.  How one goes from upright one moment to flat on your a** the next is a mystery to me.  Fortunately I have a well cushioned landing pad and was happy to realize my new camera was A-ok. I did not hear of any after shocks from the impact so that's a good thing.   My left palm and binoculars took the worst of it but luckily Don fixed the binoculars. 

 Selfie!

 It was absolutely like being in another world.  We walked along sandy, hot desert and could see the green palm trees in  certain areas where the water seeps up.  Along the fault is where the water comes to the surface and provided these beautiful oasis.

 Some areas were packed so hard with thick hard clay like chunks.  These pieces of earth are thick and very hard.

 And then off in the distance we saw the palm trees.

It is the coolest forest ever!  Dried palm fronds litter the ground and it was very interesting to see them in their natural environment as opposed to being all trimmed up like they mostly are in cities and parks.  Some of the pond fronds seem to mesh with the trees beside it creating a solid wall of intertwined pond fronds.

 I don't know what kind of little bird was eating the fan palm berries.  Native Cahuilla Indians used the fruit for food and the fronds for shelter and weaving.

 The water was very clear and beautiful.  The coolness and shade in this area was very appreciated after the plus 90 in the open area.

I just loved this walk!  It was beautiful and gave me a new appreciation for the Fan Palms in their natural habitat.

 This is a cork tree.  How cool is that?  It was huge and the bark was so interesting.

 It was at the entrance to the Coachella Valley history museum.  The museum was based in the home of Dr. Smiley who got stranded in Indio in the 1920's   I did not take many pictures of the house as it is really hard to do it justice.  It was built out of adobe bricks and was really a mansion back then.  There was a lot of history of the area, the natives and the Salton Sea.

This is a desert submarine.  They were built in the early 1920's as a sleeping or cooling room for produce and milk.  Water from the centre pipe trickled down over the burlap covered metal walls and through natural evaporation cooled the interior.  The railway was still using these structures in the late 1950's for sleeping quarters.

This is a Mexican Bird of Paradise flower.  These pretty little trees grow everywhere here and the butterflies love them.

The 3 pictures above are just taken from the car as we drove this morning.  The mountains are close by and there are tons of flowers and green grass. It really is a beautiful area.
 We got up and got moving early this morning as we wanted to (well, I wanted to) take in a 1 hour bird walk offered by the Sunnyland Centre.  We drove for an hour and never did find it which was disappointing. I only pouted a little tho.  Luckily I had all my maps and lists with me and found a note I had made about the Coachella Valley Wild Bird Centre conveniently located right in Indio!  LOL  This was truly Don's lucky day.  We had to stop and get gas after our little morning tour.  Then we noticed the Shields Date Farm was right on our way back so we did a little stop there.  Well, actually we grazed there for a while on all the wonderful dates and date products they had for sampling.  If you spend 25.00 you also get to do their garden walk for free so that was a bonus.

  These are date palms.  Dates are very expensive to produce.  I was interested to learn that if you plant a date seed a new kind of date is originated, sort of like every time a child is born, a new unique person is brought into the world.  The only way to get a specific variety  is to propagate its offshoots

There are 48 female trees to one male planted.  Full production of 150 to 300 lbs of dates will not be reached until the trees are10 to 15 years old.  The roots on a date palm is similar to an onion, none of the roots get any larger than your little finger.  They climb up the ladders which are permanently attached to the tree or from booms mounted on trucks to harvest.  Date palms require a lot of water and they do not pollinate on their own - this must be done by hand  (geez, that sounds a little dirty but I have no idea how else to write that - hahahaha).  Protective paper covers are put over the date bunches in July and August to protect the dates from rain and birds.

 The garden was sort of bible based with lots of statues and what not but very pretty with lots of flowers.  There were citrus trees as well and a couple of fig trees too.

We got some date sugar and date crystals as well as 2 kinds of date products.  I learned that you should freeze dates to keep them fresh and to prevent the white powdery or sugar crystals from forming.  They can be frozen for 5 years.  They said to keep them in the freezer and just take them out one at a time to eat.

This is a pretty little burrowing owl that has broken her wing.  The amazing ladies at the Coachella Valley Wild Bird Centre were just so knowledgeable.  They showed us all around their facility which is a non-profit corporations created to care for and rehabilitate orphaned, injured or sick native wild birds. Ultimately, the goal is to release them back into their habitats.  There was a young hummingbird and a few small owls in the inside being cared for.  Outside they had a red tailed hawk, peregrine falcon, road runners, barn and great horned owls and some grebes.

There weren't many which is a good thing as most have been rehabilitated and sent back to their habitat.  Mostly they get young ones in the spring and summer.  The female great horned owl has fostered many many little ones.  She cannot fly so she cannot teach them to hunt.  The young are sent to a male in a different cage with a bucket of mice and he teaches them that part. The barn owl above is also not releasable so is used to take to schools and educate school kids.  This is a very dedicated group of people and a lot of these nocturnal animals require night time feeding etc.

This is where they teach the birds to fly.  Apparently a lot of the pelicans from the Salton Sea that are orphaned or sick come here and are taught to hunt fish and fly.
We had a laundry morning and a couple of relaxing/sitting by the pool afternoons and our time here has flown by so fast.  Tonight we went to a local amazing little Mexican restaurant for supper which was amazing.  Definitely NOT a low carb day.  Maybe tomorrow . . .