Taylor Mountain

We found a new entrance to this park this morning. The trail winds up the side of the hill through oak trees and very dry grass. It looks like August even though it's only June. It's just above a fairly busy road and the sound of the cars driving by below can be clearly heard for awhile, but then the path turns and climbs up to a fence with a gate and a warning not to let the grazing cows out. We are also warned that we should stay away from the cows if they look aggressive....sometimes official signs seem to have unusual brilliance for stating the obvious....witout letting out any cows, we eventually came to a big open pasture and stopped to enjoy the view out over the flatlands. It was overcast and cool, our natural air conditioning having kicked in and we both agreed that if the sun were out it would probably be brutally hot!

The sun was coming out by the time we  headed back down through the trees and I was struck by the perseverance of the old oaks. The one in the extra had split right down the middle, the two sides leaning away from each other, their tops resting on the ground. Despite the breech, the two halves still appeared to be sustaining each other, perhaps from conjoined root system under the ground.

When we got back to the car from the heights, we were back to earth with a thud as we realized the we were less than a mile from Target and should really stop in to see if we could get some now cushions for our random collection of chairs under the arbor. I thought we might be able to find something that would unify them and make it look like we planned them that way, but it seemed to be a pretty random collection,  and we were unable to make a decision. Target has that effect on me unless I am buying toilet paper or cleaning supplies....

OilMan cleaned our fountain pond by the front door which was starting to fill with floating islands of algae. I did some laundry and read browsed the New York Times, and Ozzie took a nap. All in all, a pretty typical Sunday.