Whole New Outlook on the Chowchilla River

Why didn't we think of it before? Mid-morningish, I was puttering around, sweating, wanting to get outside if only to move around a little bit. (OK I also did not really want to scrub the floors and other low-interest tasks.) I got to thinking about a certain river, not too far away from this very house and realized that in the years since we bought the part of the property that has river acreage we never went swimming. For some reason, we never connected the dots. Upshot: we put on our suits, hopped on the ATV and went down to the swimmin' hole! It was awesome! Aside from just feeling excellent in terms of cooling down, it was a good enough hole to actually swim in! And on top of all that, it was a way to learn about the Chowchilla River from an entirely new perspective. We saw a new kind of dragonfly - we think it's a White-belted Ringtail, but we didn't have our binoculars so it was just naked eye. We'll have to go back later and hope to see it again.

After we'd had enough we sat on a log to dry off and ate apples. Some of the horses were hanging around near the salt lick not too far away, so I walked over and tried to call Bill the Mule over by showing him the core and clucking at him. No go. So I ostentatiously took a bite of what was left and smacked and chomped. That did the trick. Once he was done with that apple, he went over and pestered Dino for the other leavings. We are both fond of that mule; he is a very handsome animal.

On an unrelated note, Dino pointed out this spider on the garage door handle, so a record shot was required. This one is probably a Silver Argiope.