Birthday

I must share the art made for me by Nick and Soren!

Nick made this charcoal drawing from one of my grebe photos.  It is amazing in its detail!

Soren loves to whomp me in Super Mario Brothers video games, as illustrated above.  Great drawing, Soren!

On my birthday, we did a hike to one of our favorite go to places not far from home, Boden Canyon.  It was sunny, in the 70's, and the hills are green - something we haven't seen in the past 5 years.  

The trail follows an old dirt road that is now washed out in places.  We saw no other person the whole day.

Much of the area is now a preserve.  The parking is so limited (space for one car) and dangerous, that this area is very people free.

An American Kestrel watching for prey.

 Flowing streams!

 We had to wade across.

 The mission for this trip was to place my trail cam in an area we had seen cougar tracks a few weeks ago.  We plan to check it in about 10 days, if it's still there.  It is in the above area, about four miles up the canyon.

 A birthday bonus was seeing two rattlesnakes.  The first one Gail got a glimpse of as it went into a dense shrub.  We couldn't see it, but it buzzed its rattle continuously until we moved away about 30 feet.  If we moved closer it would start up again.  The above juvenile Southern Pacific Rattlesnake also sped off into the bushes.

 Gail tried to flush it out so I could get a better picture, but no luck.

Friday night, we had a little birthday party.  Gail made this decadent chocolate cake from scratch - it was awesome!

 Ta da!  Note the question mark for age - a respectful touch!

 Gail also made a tortellini soup that was delicious.

Flaming cocktails before desert was something new and fun, followed by a fire in the fireplace and a movie.