African Figures

I often wake up feeling like the whole day stretches before me to do with as I like. That is what happened today, although doing what I liked  took a different form than I had envisaged. We decided to check out the Spike walk to see if the meadow had been mowed as we wanted him to have a good run wanted to lower the foxtail risk as much as possible. We wound up going in an entirely different direction.

A wide open hilly area we used to call 'Ozzie's field' was a wonderful place in between Dana's house and ours where we could walk on grass covered hills and there didn't seem to be any rules about dogs on leashes. It was to be the next phase of a big development, but the company that owned the land went bankrupt when the housing bubble of 2008 burst and the property was owned by a bank.  

Alas, it was eventually sold to another developer and all but a narrow space along the creek was plowed up and rearranged and twenty some new houses were built there. We were so disappointed by the inevitable that we didn't go near there for years. The Glass fire burned through the creek at the bottom of the hills and with it some beautiful stately old oak trees, making it even less appealing. However, today, it turned out to be a pretty good, foxtail free place to take Spike, so we took the fire road at the bottom of the new development and checked out the extent of the damage and the recovery.

I got lost in my trip back through old photos documenting this process and have now run out of time to write about it, so I'll do that another time. 

I went back to Ann's studio with Dana today and we spent a lot of time there, chatting with Ann when she wasn't busy talking with visitors to her open studio. It's a lovely open and airy space with lots to look at and while Dana was seriously considering several paintings (narrowing down a large number to just three or four) I had time to sit in the big comfy chair and watch the proceedings. Ann is from South Africa, and I have always loved her collection of beaded 'dolls' set out on a high shelf along with other African folk art pieces.

Now we are off to Dana and Jim's for Sunday supper and while accomplishing nothing I intended to do, I have had a very pleasant day....