Michael's Animal Carvings

Roughly 18-20 years ago Michael was hired to do some plaques for Walker Creek Ranch which is an outdoor science camp school related to the Marin County Office of Education.  We pulled up in our 5th wheel mid morning and they instantly were wondering if we turned in by mistake.  There are signs when you enter the gate and it's obvious that they don't want uninvited visitors popping by.  Once they learned what we were there for and that Michael did all the animal carvings, they appointed a nice lady to walk us around to each of the stands so I could get some photos.  The problem is that some of the posts holding the stands are rotting and are in need of repair.  He even carved some smaller, single animals but they are all missing and the administration does not know what happened to them.  That's a little sad news to hear. 

Mike is thinking of doing some more of these for our shop but on a smaller scale, for home or yard decor.

On the way to the ranch.

Tomales Bay.

Coyote.

Deer.

Racoons. (In the storage yard waiting for repairs to the stand.)

Rabbits and hawk, awaiting repairs.

Bobcat 1.

Bobcat 2.

Bobcat 3.

The owls.  My favorite. 

Foxes.

Hiking Trails All Over the Place

After another breakfast of oatmeal this morning, we took a short six mile drive down the street to Five Brooks Trailhead.  Michael has been planning this hike for days, he had it all mapped out and he wanted to hike to the ridge.  We followed the main fire road all the way to Fir Top, which is the ridge, where we each had a half of peanut butter and jam sandwich and then headed back down.  This time we did seven miles round trip.

We began here.

Starting out the road follows along a small pond.

Winding our way up the road, it's a steady climb.

Sunlit greens and smoky blues and peaches with rust colors abound.

This guy created some serious dust when he came back down the hill and we had to stop to let it all settle.  He's going up at this point.  That flat thing on the right drops down and has a sharp edge that chops down everything in it's path.  When we got to the top of the ridge, it was up there with the flat thing down and that's what we sat on to eat our lunch.  The guy running it was on his lunch break, picked up by another worker that took him down to the bottom.

See the hills in the distance?  That's where we were yesterday when we hiked 9.34 miles.

At the top, Fir Top that is.

It's our anniversary.

Back at the bottom.  All pooped out, legs feeling heavy and tired from two days of hiking.  We're going to rest up before we go out for dinner.

Bolinas Ridge Trail

Michael and I hiked the Bolinas Ridge Trail today.  We slept in very late and had a bowl of steaming oatmeal around 10 am and headed out around 11:15 and got back at 4 pm for a total of 9.34 miles.  We took our time and I kept stopping to capture pictures.   You can see how pretty it is even though everything is bone dry and thirsty.  We need some rain!  We packed a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a banana to share and three bottles of H2O.   

We began here at the trailhead on Sir Francis Drake.

I like taking pictures of fence posts with moss on them.

 

A rutty road ahead.

Lots of calves.

I want to paint a landscape of this one.

You can see how dry it is.  Look at the nearly empty pond.

Mike stopping for a peak in the binoculars.

I love eucalyptus trees. 

We stopped here for lunch at the picnic table to the right of the rocks.  This was approx. 4 miles to this point.  See the hawk in the tree to the left of the rocks?  It's up at the very tip top.

The reflection from my bright pink hat on the beetle.

At this point we're heading back to the truck.  Our legs beginning to feel very heavy and tired.