A little more settled. July 18

HI,

Here i am at the end, well, almost the end, of a pretty productive day. Relatively speaking.

I was getting ready for company and did some cleaning. I completely cleaned the guest cottage. I did the bathroom including the walls. It felt good to have a purpose.

Nothing very exciting. Except......the buck, young, 3 points on one antler and 2 on the other and still covered in velvet, down at the pond.

In the middle of the day, I returned from a lap down to the road and back and thought well ll keep going down to the pond and get in a few hundred more steps.......and there he was......

I went very slowly, I could see him from the deck, so i quietly made my way to the edge of the yard, one sneaky step after the next holding still when he looked up toward the house. AND to my surprise, he started walking toward me! I don't know how he didn' t see me. I was wearing a light gray t-shirt. But he didn't, and he was walking right toward me. By now i was up to the gate with my camera fixed on him.... I got to see him duck under the split rail fence and see him sort of browsing along the meadow and then he heard the shutter. Well up came his head with his impressive rack and looked at me...Id say he was about 150 feet away; and turned and bounded back over the fence and up the little hill . I did get a few photos but they weren't that clear as he stayed in the shadows as much as he could. But i was pretty psyched about that encounter.

Although it's not yet 5 shadows envelop the house and yard because of the dense and tall forest up the hill behind the garage to the west. It feels like time to settle down, the air is cool now...there's been a breeze all day.

Im not going to get to Oroville or Chico to see Selena tonight or tomorrow. We both are trying to reserve our funds and its a pretty far drive both ways. She is heading back to Idaho tomorrow.

So im just going to keep walking and reading and keeping this place up for Al and Mary. Soon im going to have to tackle the dreaded Weed Wacker.

I picked a beautiful bunch of leaf lettuce and plan on green salad for dinner. A couple tomatoes are turning yellow and orange so by next week i should have a nice tomato in my salad too.

I was ok today being alone. It does take getting used to. Even for me.

Keep in touch, Love Mom/Sal