Mystery House

This isn't a very good picture but I find it kind of fascinating so I decided to use it as part of the recovery record....

I was sitting on the porch this morning trying to get a photograph of the colorful grosbeak who has been making regular appearances lately. It seems fairly sympatico with the finches unlike either the jays or the acorn woodpeckers. They cause the whole flock to scatter and then have only to duke it out with each other for supremacy over the bird feeders. Usually the woodpeckers win....

But I digress. I noticed what seemed to be the outlines of a house among the burned trees on the hill above the head of the creek, but it was hard to tell if it was a house or just a scar on the landscape. I noticed a house up there several months ago and wondered if it was a new one under construction or an abandoned victim of the fire that roared through there.

I had my camera with the telephoto lens on my lap so I trained it on the hill and took this picture. Not much seems to have happened to it except that now it is black instead of white. It's pretty creepy looking, abandoned in the moonscape of burned trees and charred ground. I can't imagine who would want to live there. It definitely qualifies as Pooh's 'Gloomy Place'.

After a beautifully artistic presentation on top of my latte this morning, I went back to the coffee bar and told Danielle, who has been managing the bar since it opened, that she still makes the best coffee. They have had considerable turnover in workers since the bicycle part of the business was purchased by Specialized. The original owner and his wife are keeping the bar. They are friends with the owners of Russian River Brewing and have a very good selection of Russian river beers as well as quite a few other local craft breweries. We admired the tiny garden next to the sign which is beautifully maintained year round. The combination of things at Trail House definitely qualifies it as a Comfy Place....*

I brought John and Spike home and cleaned my Birkenstocks before heading to Pilates. Dana has the same black leather ones as mine and hers always look brand new while mine were showing the effects of a winter in the back of a closet in a house in the midst of a dust bowl. Dana, mother of two boys who used to play baseball, said she used baseball glove conditioner on hers. She gave me a little container of Hot Glove conditioner that must be at least ten years old and it worked better than the stuff that came with the Birkenstocks....

*extra