Yesterday was a day for open space and two chairs.
We went over to the Mother's Day spot, bringing books to read and a need for nature.
The drive on the canyon was beautiful as usual. I captured it through the front windshield.
Doesn't that just fill you with the "get away from it all" feeling?!
As soon as we arrived, I noticed a pop-up in the adjacent parking area with the name of our library on it.
I went over to check it out.
It turns out that it was a registered volunteer day to clean up the trails! They had a stack of copies of
THE NATURE FIX, which I assume were for said volunteers. I thanked them for doing this work for the many that enjoy these trails.
Today was a "chairs day" for us.
🪑 🪑
Right off, the clouds were one of the stars of the day!
The first photo below is altered quite a bit, my new creative fun.
I'm enjoying turning my photos into paintings!
Anyway, the clouds were rolling in over the mountains, rain was predicted for later in the day.
We got some, briefly, this morning.
The two photos below that are clouds that looked like ocean waves to me! Amazing!
We noticed the greening of the hills and wondered how long it would last this year,
before everything looked brown again.
There was a sprinkling of wild flowers, plenty of birdsong (that will surely lift your spirits!), fox tails shining in the sun and clumps of branches, trimmed, cleared, cleaned-up. I guess this is in preparation for 'fire season'. I brought home a Beautiful Straight stick to switch out for the driftwood, which has held DEE'S QUILT all of this time, as that one would never stay straight on the wall. You can see her quilt in the link. It's the one by the keyboard. Anyway, this one is longer than needed and looks grand. J. suggested hanging feathers from the ends 🙂
We sat down to read and I chuckled at our reading choices, us in a nutshell. Him a scholar of history, me a sentimental fool! lol
I've shared my pick in past posts and I still highly recommend it to all of you. I keep this one in my work bag and often read a poem or two on my lunch break. There are so many that spark some sort of thought or connection to those I love. I often think that I want to send this off to many of you. I often think Michelle in NYC would have enjoyed this book.
I was amused by the way the wind blew my hair, casting shadows on each page!
After reading a bit, I got up to stretch, to go walk about. The first thing I noticed was this old rusty washer. I picked it up and looked through, changing my perspective instantly. I thought a lot about that, especially in relation to Jude's teachings and explorations. I remembered how I used to dye cloth at the old place. How many of you still do. Instead of leaving it where I'd found it, I carried it about with me...looking through and framing photos. What fun! I decided to bring it home, figuring that the trail cleaners would just toss it in a trash bag, not seeing the rust beauty or the potential. One the way home I recited a monolog about how much I like to take photos, purely for the play factor. I'm not trying to enhance skills, create a sellable end product, gather acclaim from others...it is just process, getting lost in the moment, exploring and playing. And it carries me away from daily life and makes me happy.
My old neighbor used to call this super soft top dirt "old dirt"...so I do too now.
Of course, J. who knows more geology than I gave me a lesson on how, where, why earth erodes.
I embraced the old dirt, the sky & clouds and once home, I 'painted' the sun!
