GETTING BEAUTIFUL.

This little doe comes to visit me each morning. She seems to know when I have the camera aimed at her and hides from me. My yard is Certified Wildlife Habitat, and between Karen and I, we’ve  seen every animal except a possum and a bear come to drink water. Cougars, bobcats, foxes, skunks, raccoons, squirrels, coyotes, dogs, cats, birds. Even bats and lizards. This low water year, the water in my pond, and other vessels,  needs to be replenished every other day, which Karen does.

I’m coming at my subject a bit sideways, here, but Jim brought this beautiful hammock all the way from Central America. It has hung between a couple of trees for the last two summers and a squirrel came down the tree and chewed part of the threads. Sorry, Jim. I was pretty amazed at that. She  chewed some of the support strings as well. I don’t blame the squirrel. I’m sure she is nest-building.  Red tail hawks decimated my squirrel population a while back and this one has moved in to begin a new generation.

I’m always bragging about Murphys being such a nice place to live, with its beautiful park with a creek running through it. But, San Andreas has a beautiful Turner Park too, with multiple entrances and areas to enjoy because it runs along a small creek. I met friends yesterday, with whom I worked at the Calaveras Enterprise in the 1980′s  and was reminded of the wholesome community we share. Dedicated park volunteers were blowing debris and picking up stuff people leave behind when I got there. How cool is that?

This cute elephant bridge leads to a playground for the kids. Part of why this is such a great place to live is the huge body of volunteerism that makes places  like this possible for everyone.

Sue Walker has a new last name since we met at this same spot last year. I was surprised my friends knew about my accident on May 27th.  We spent an hour playing catch-up while we ate our bag lunch.

We manage our visit in an hour since Deborah Mullen comes from work during her lunch time.  I heard that our former editor, Sandy Lema died while I was on the road, and I forgot to ask them if that was correct?

That hour went by way too fast!  I’m going to make an effort to get home earlier next year to attend the main event. We grabbed one of the friendly park volunteers to take our picture before we parted.

This is a group photo of Enterprise staffers from Reunion 2011.
After leaving the park, I had some blood work done and then went to the beauty shop to get my hair cut. I reminded Sue, who was cutting my hair, that the purpose of a beauty salon is make people beautiful.

I thought she did a pretty good job, don’t you?

Then I stopped in Angels Camp to visit my friend Linda Foster. She is painting her house and needs help deciding what color to choose.

The picture doesn’t show all of her possible choices.  But, I think it was more than nine.  Decisions, decisions. And you know?  She didn’t even notice my beautiful new look? The older we get, the harder it is to get beautiful.