Morning in Paradise...

Morning in Paradise...  Last night, as planned, we went to the Trout & Berry Days dinner at the Paradise town park.  In addition to the delicious dinner, there were lots of people we knew there, and plenty of new people to meet.  The photo at right shows the picnic tables we all ate at (behind Debbie), and you can make out the Week's Berry Farm trailer from where we got our desserts (a little custard in a pie crust, with blackberries on top).  One fun thing for me: it turns out that several of the servers were part of the “Mormon horde” that did a service project to clear dead wood on our property earlier this year.  These guys all remembered me (or, more likely, the chicken sandwiches that Debbie made!), and we got a big, friendly greeting from them all.  Debbie watched the cooks grilling the trout and pronounced it “well done!” – mainly because they used vast quantities of butter on the grill.  The trout was outstanding, as it was last year.  We had a lovely time, not least because we got to spend some time with our friends Bruce and June (who took us there).  This get-together reeks of small town America – a community activity for the whole family, with people from newborn babies (one we saw was just 4 days old!) to nonagenarians.  Nice.  Our style.  Home, in a way that Jamul, California never felt...

This morning I was feeling very lazy, and had to force myself out on a walk with Race and Miki.  Once I got myself in motion, though, it was just as enjoyable as always.  No crazy voles or close hawk encounters, though.  We did see lots of hawks again, including one quite large red-tailed hawk.  They're very skittish birds, usually flying off when we get to within 100' or so of them.  I speculate that this is because they're actually quite vulnerable to injury, their formidable appearance notwithstanding.  It would be very easy for a hawk to suffer an injury that would prevent it from hunting – a broken wing, or even just a few key flight feathers pulled out – and that would kill the hawk by starvation.  That makes the behavior we saw yesterday, wherein the hawk allowed Race within a foot or so of him, quite unusual.  I don't know how to account for it...

Some photos from this morning's walk for you: