Signs of the Elusive

On my walk yesterday in the early evening I found three tracks in the dirt road. Can you guess what these are? One is fairly obvious and the other two are more difficult. They were all in the soft dirt at the turn( what we call the switch back) on our road. It is the only place where the road is flat and has a build up of very fine, soft dirt. We find tracks all the time here.

Take a guess and we'll see if any of you are good "Trackers"

Old garden and a little green chair.

I came back home yesterday afternoon. Had a short but happy visit to the Bay Area (that's what we call the San Francisco-Oakland area of Northern California). Mom was doing well and I had another nice visit with her. I had some business to take care of in Oakland on Tuesday but after that it was just, as you can see, sitting around with Mom and taking pictures. This is a little photo vignette of her back yard. She loves to sit out here and read. Honey, the cat, likes to have her head and ears rubbed but still looks at me like I'm an alien from another planet. She was a stray that adopted Mom a few years back and still has a street attitude. She doesn't like people at all but Mom has won her over. Honey is good for Mom. She even sleeps with Mom now. This is the cat's B&B, but she wants out right after breakfast and doesn't show up until late in the evening for more food. Then Mom brushes her and she plays with assorted toys that Mom has bought her. Eventually she goes to the back door and wants out. Mom has a long talk with her about the dangers of being outside at night and Honey give her that "Ok, I'll stay inside. But it is my choice to do this." look. If I'm there, she looks at me as if to say "You here again? Don't you have a home somewhere else?"

So..., Sunday afternoon Sis and I went over to Room with a Past in Walnut Creek. It's only open 3 days( and one evening) a month but what bargains! This is a store that used to be owned by Jan Ely(pinkhousepages.blogspot.com) but she sold it recently. She still sells her beautiful painted furniture and other vintage things there, but now she will have time to pursue other artful endeavors. Jan wasn't there (lousy planning on my part) but I bought the wonderful little chair that she wrote of in her last post. See the chair photo in her blog..., now see the chair on my porch. It traveled 120 miles ,yesterday, folks and now I have the "Cute little green chair" that".... can't decide if it wants to grow up or not. Reminds me of a cat that's not a kitten anymore, but sure as heck couldn't be mistaken for an adult quite yet." I love it!! It's just the right size for my porch. I will let Jan know if it grows any bigger. I also bought one of Jan's Pink Calico Geranium. It just seemed to go with the chair. I'll find a pretty pot to plant it in. Geranium thrive here in the foothills: As long as you water them and that's what we do here in the summer...., we WATER.

Wordless Wednesday; summer begonia collage

What! No window box?

What!..., wait a minute, where's my...., oh no!! Where is my window and the window box I was going to put the flowers in. The prospector made a management decision and ....














Don't you think that a small window would have looked good here. It would have broken up the big space, and with a window box below it I could have put real flowers in it because there is a hose and water close by.
Actually, we did talk about it and he said that we could put one in later if we needed more ventillation. The doors are dutch doors and will have a screen door behind them so , as you can see in the second photo, there will be lots of air flow on hot days.

So I'm thinking that I will fill up that wall with all kinds of things. .., pots of flowers on the ground, old signs and vintage farm things on the wall . Maybe an old window frame in the middle and a WINDOW BOX underneath.

There's no goat DECK either but I have see the error of my ways on this one. Goats like to sit in the dirt or go to sleep in the goat house, or run and play. So, a covered deck would have looked good but probably not have been used much by them. Especially after we fence the area below the house and they spend their day eating grass. What can I say. I got carried away. I'm a decorator . I always want to embellish everything. So, when I finish painting the whole thing I will work some magic on that wall. I've got about a 3rd of the painting done so far. The siding is really soaking up the paint. I will have to do two coats on everything.


Do the goats care about all of this? No..., they are just as happy with an old wash bucket.


They have slept in their new digs for two nights now and the Prospector said that they woke him up at 2:30 last night playing around inside the goat house. He said they were making a lot of noise. Must be the full moon. Silly goats!

I leave for the Bay area today to see my Mom. The painting will be put on hold for a few days. I will be back on Wednesday.