Weekends at Dryad Ranch

We got done all sorts of chores done yesterday. Dino put a temporary fix on a toilet that decided to start running/leaking. I did all the regular housecleaning stuff. After lunch we went into the garden to discuss how we want to arrange things and after that we just started drifting into doing little things out there that looked like they needed doing. I fell into a zennish trance of weeding.

Around 4, I found Dino"resting his eyes" on the front porch swing and decided to take a little walk. I laced up, grabbed the camera and headed up Ant Hill. From there I swung around to Altar Rock, which is my favorite spot on the place. There is a spring there and just above it is a very large rock upon which another large rock sits, altarlike. It's a very special spot and I go there on almost all of my solitary walks in that direction.

Just below the spring, I found bees enjoying sips from a small pool covered in duck weed.

From there, I climbed Deer Ridge in a straight shot uphill, found a good dozen or so bluebirds busily hunting bugs, then I dropped back down to the road and started the full loop around the Northwest Territory.

Finally, I made my way to Dino's favorite spot under the Oregon Ash and the little pool there. I really got munched by mosquitoes as usual. While I was sitting and waiting hopefully for a bullfrog to show up for a photo op, I was greatly alarmed by rather loud rustling footstep noises behind me. I whirled to start my defense, only to scare the crap out of about thirty wild turkeys who hadn't been aware of me either! They ran off about twenty feet to the other side of the river, then stopped and started milling about in a standard turkeyish way, talking amongst themselves. After not seeing the turkeys during the summer months, we've seen them the last couple of walks and have noticed evidence of them, in great scratched up patches in the ground under the oaks in that area.

When I got back to the house, I found it was three hours later. Since I hadn't intended to be gone that long, I really had to start hustling to get dinner ready.