Woods Ranch, August 2018

Since Mike's knee replacement surgery in June, he has really had some struggles with Anxiety with a capital A. His internal thermostat has gone kind of haywire. He's worked through some depression. Physical Therapy hasn't gone as well as he had hoped it could or would.  Flexibility has not returned quite yet.

BUT things are improving each day.  (except the flexibility...so far.) One of the things that helps with both the anxiety and the heat issues --he canNOT stand to be hot or warm at all -- is driving up the canyon.  It's about 20 degrees cooler up the canyon at Woods Ranch recreation area.  And no one is there!  So he'll drive up there, do some of his exercises and then lie down on a picnic table (on his yoga mat) under one of pavillions and read a book or do word puzzles or something. No mosquitos.  Sometimes a light breeze.  He gets to see deer, too.

AND we have horse shoes. The kind you throw.  There are horseshoe pits up there. Last night I didn't have to do Shakespeare, didn't have anything like beans to preserve or put up (whew--nice break from that for a minute....tomatoes are upon us!), so he invited me to join him. I got a little correspondence done, took some photos until my camera's battery died, we saw a couple of cute little bucks grazing in the meadow before they went bounding off.

Just so you know, this is the second time we've gone up there for horse shoes. He won the first time, but I won this time!  I didn't think to take any pictures of playing horse shoes, and the battery in my camera was dead by the time we saw the deer, so no photos of those cute little fellers. 

So here are some random photos of the scenery and wildflowers up there.  Enjoy:-)

check out the little bug on this one!