Daddy Wags Editing

I don’t eat cashews.
We always bring a plastic jar of trail mix when we disappear in our RV.
Dinner tonight was two large slices of Boar’s Head ham; one slice of Swiss cheese, which is my favorite; five or six layers of lettuce from a turning-brown head that had been in the fridge at home for about two weeks; and a generous layer of mayo. That and about 20 green grapes and a bottle of water was dinner.
The sandwich was delicious.
After that, I stirred a 1-to-4 mix of sugar and water for a batch of hummingbird food, filled two feeders, then hung them from low branches in a piñon and a juniper tree just steps away from the RV.
I always wonder how long it’ll be until a hummer arrives. This time, it was an hour or so. The buzz of its wings announced its arrival. At first, it did not sip. It seemed to be on a scouting expedition. A little later, it returned. And sipped. The nectar juggled at the end of its skinny tongue.
There’s something about the bright red color of the feeder’s top that the little birds spot. From long distances, it seems.
I came to the end of a chapter of the book I’m reading—and decided I wanted a few raisins and almonds from the trail mix.
Anymore, I limit myself to 10 bites of three or four or five raisins and peanuts and almonds.
The cashews, I pick out. This time, I tossed them 22 feet away, in the dirt and under a piñon branch. (I paced off the 22 feet.)
After awhile, I heard a fluttering of a different bird. I loooked up from the book. A bird, blue on top, a gray belly. A Stellar’s jay, I first thought. No, no top crest on its head. Quickly, the bird hopped to lower and lower and lower branches. Then into the dirt.
It had spotted the cashews. Quickly, it grabbed one in its beak—and off it went.
A little later, it’s reappeared for another.
How in the world do these birds find food. By smell? Sight?
Amazing.
One of my bird books tells me the bird was a Woodhouse’s scrub jay. The other book, a western scrub jay.
If it reappears, I’ll try to capture a photo with my cell phone.
Our destination this week is Heron Lake State Park in northern New Mexico. Our first visit here.

May 2024

11 months ago, I began writing content that I figured would become a Blog.

It was a technological struggle. Months later, with help, I managed to post several entries on a Blog. Managing it continues to be a struggle.

Thus, today, with wife Roberta's help, I have started tp transfer my stories to Facebook.

Here we go! Today's post is the preface I wrote 11 months ago.

Adventures With Daddy Wags
My Travels By Harley, Jeep, RV

May 2023

Writing’s fun. And I love to leave the house and travel.
At the simple insertion of a key are a Harley-Davidson, a Jeep Wrangler, and an RV.
As for writing: I made a career doing that. And still do, in retirement. I even wrote a book.
The attraction of writing: To share a story or memory or an encounter with an unforgettable character. Writers search for the perfect word. They attempt to lift the reader to the scene of the action.
For 28 years, I worked in the newsroom of a daily newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For eight years after that, I was the editor of a weekly newspaper in Destin, Florida.
My byline appeared on hundreds of reports. One of them was especially memorable and was published in the early 1990s in The Albuquerque Tribune as a series of articles over three days. It chronicled the life and death of a young Albuquerque soldier. He served in Vietnam and died of injuries when the helicopter he had climbed aboard was shot down during a rescue mission for which he had volunteered. The articles concluded with a description of a full military burial during a ferocious rainstorm at Santa Fe National Cemetery.
In around 2010, having retired from the newspaper world, I began assisting writers with their own written words. I worked on novels and nonfiction books and doctoral dissertations and master’s theses and class assignments and applications for jobs and grants and a host of other flavors of writing.
In July 2019, I began working on a book, first collecting information, then writing. I loved it. Two and a half years later, I self-published nearly 600 pages in two books of the history of a dying New Mexico community. The title: DATIL: A Hidden History of an Historic New Mexico Town. Book 1 & Book 2.
Earlier this year, 2023, I resurrected an idea for another book. Reporting and writing for it are under way. Then I bought a laptop computer and decided to write a blog. My hope was that my stories in the blog would attract readers who might vicariously enjoy my travels and adventures and even my thoughts and ideas – silly or outrageous.
Let’s go! I invite you to join me and Roberta, my wife, and her dog, Hutch.
--Jim ‘Daddy Wags’ Wagner
[email protected]

I want to create a blog.
Is WordPress an easy vehicle to understand and use? And is it free or low cost?
Thanks for your thoughts…
Jim

Contact me for editing/proofreading at [email protected] or 850.803.9298.