Built a duck house with "Drampa Jerry" & am apparently the one-ly person in the werld who can work with him. He has patience with me, & for that I am thankful.

This past weekend we went to Shingle Springs. Took HWY 49 from Mariposa to Placerville. Just go look at the changes in elevation & switchbacks & twisty-turnyness on a map. Much, much scarier than it looks! Took us 4 hours to get there, but! what a lovely place! & saw the foothills, & loved the wilderness of it all. Big craggy cliffs, oaks, pines, sunflowers... and it changes throughout, but also remains the same, the Sierra foothills, where Mark Twain, John Muir, Bret Hart, countless others of equal kindred made a life-long study of the way it blinks in the morning, feels fresh, rolls along the hillsides, then sidles up to you, smells sweet & tangy, haunts the heart, & finally catches the senses & the soul. I do love living here.

Danny had much fun swimming in Aunt Peg's pool. He took a shower with me at Philip's house where we stayed the night, & the next morning he ate a "bunny" pancake (with banana slice eyes & strawberry nose) at the Train Station Cafe in Shingle Springs. From there we played at a play ground across the street, & then caught the attention of two bored firemen, who drove their truck up to us & stopped & asked if Danny wanted to get inside. Of course. He sat in the passenger's seat & ogled the buttons & levers & controls & finally said, "Otay, get me out of here, Mama" but he got to keep the little plastic hat (which is almost too small for his big noggin~!).

From there we headed to Mike & Fanny's, where Danny was able to pet goats & love on Lucky, Fanny's red-dapple gray horse. Fanny put a halter on Lucky & I put Danny on Lucky's back & we walked around the pasture for about fifteen minutes, much to Dan's delight. He held onto the mane & had such a good seat I didn't think I really needed to hang onto his pant's waistband, but I did out of Mama's caution... So proud of my boy, & so happy to see him enjoy things I love, too. Aunt Sam & I had much fun loving on Lucky after he had his ride & snack-- something wonderful about a horse, especially about a horse who knows how to receive & give the love. Sam was in horse heaven. I would have been, but was a little distracted by a Danny impkin. I'd love to take Sam on a horse-riding trip. Someday soon.

Harvested a ridiculous amount of squash from my plants today. Finally! Been waiting for the "abundance" everyone claims. Wish the tomatoes would break color...

Tomorrow means more work on the duck house, & we need to get winter rye to plant, boards for a gate, latches for the drop-lid, & hardware cloth for the air-holes, to keep critters out. I am so excited about ducks! Welsh Harlequins. All the males will be Sir Francis (in case we want to eat them), & the females will have names selected by Danny (he's already said, "Ming-Ming!") & by my research on Welsh names. I'm thinkin: Igrain, Winnifered, Morgan, Gwendolyn, etc etc.

Okay, almost 10pm. Count me out.

Another door opened, one more. Do I invite you in? Here I am, with husband & son & dogs & cats, in a tiny cabin in the hills, deep in an oak forest glade. I look out the window & see prominent rocks rounded by weather & formed, some of them, by human hands a hundred or a thousand years ago. There are enormous oaks, and a few cedars, creating a wonderfully secluded hilltop retreat. If I look up into the birdsong I can follow the almost-touching silhouettes of graceful tree branches, glimpse the blue sky beyond. I can also see my little lush garden, peas & lettuce & corn, carrots D. tears out with his hands to eat the sweet orange meat, & beets, peppers, chard, beans, squash, potatoes, basil, parsley. We found toads under some logs, burrowed deep & waiting for the night to begin their creeping prowls through the grass, and put two as big as my fist into the deep lush green tangle of peas inside the garden fence. The liquid calls of quail, meadowlarks, grosbeaks, robins, the burr of hummingbirds and blackbirds, the screech of hawks and the rocking rough notes of the ravens, these sounds thrill my ears.

I love living in a wilder place, 4 miles from a small town, back & in on a dusty dirt road. It is hot here in the California foothills, but not as hot as it is in the San Juaquin Valley just west of us. I can hear the click of the hot-bugs over the sound of the swamp cooler. Robins are patrolling the grass where I dumped out the water from D's little pool. It is a hot-day drowsy naptime.

There is so much to write I'm not sure where to start. But this is a start, better than some. I've only grumped out loud thrice. These days are worth remembering, and so I see it as my duty to record them as best as possible. The trees listen, kindly sighing, but the memory goes drifting into the wind like their seeds. The rocks remember but will never tell. And the earth is intent only upon bringing forth life, a sweet companion but single-minded as a new mother. So here I sit, listening to the goldfinches and locusts, and consider the quiet of mid-afternoon in a place I think might be close to Paradise.