Sunday, March 23, 2013 — Back to this active life

Mike and Art trying to decipher the writing

Art and Mike admiring one of the moret elaborate stones

Art at the tombstone of a friend of mine

This is an ever changing shoreline

View as we exit the park

Bobby on duty

Something worth my while is happening here each day. Every hour I should really say. I love being here and I'm so grateful for the sense of inclusivity I feel. Friday afternoon my friend Art invited me to take a look at two of the newer Land Trust trails along the Headlands near the southern shore of Fort Bragg and the new Caspar trail that joins the road to the old Caspar cemetery. What a tranquil place that is. Graves dating back to the very early 1800's. Another friend, Mike, joined us for the walk and he fired off one question after another to Art about the flora, the birds and many things regarding the cemetery headstones which are in every possible state of preservation. Art grew up in Fort Bragg and knew many of the family names on the stones. A pretty interesting place to visit.

Friday night featured an amazing fish cake dinner at Caspar Community Center followed by a rare evening of music from Cape Breton, located at the tip of Nova Scotia. As some of you know, I'm going to leave on my road trip across Canada in mid-August. Jean Pierre and Yael may caravan with me for the first half of that trip. We'll visit mutual friends along the way and I'm beginning to get quite excited about the journey. After spending Friday evening listening to music from Cape Breton I vowed to add this eastern tip of Canada to my itinerary. What could be more fun than to have that special place be my eastern destination before turning westward across the U.S. toward Oberlin where our Leah calls home these days. I've long enjoyed Celtic music from Cape Breton, but had not, until Friday night, spent a whole evening listening to live music from there, including much Gaelic singing and some lively step dancing. 

This morning at a breakfast, one person after another raved about the previous night's performance to each other and all gave thanks to Tim Bray who helped bring this inspiring group to Caspar. It would be impossible not to enjoy the end of the month Sunday Breakfast at Caspar. I know, here comes more about food again. Try to live with it. To me, food is one of the great art forms we are privileged to enjoy along with good drink. Caspar Community Center has become such a joyful place to eat, listen to great talks or forums and hear a huge eclectic selection of good music. All the work the Tarbels and others in Caspar put in to make this such a hospitable venue for special events, has paid off a thousand times over. It is truly a community hub. 

After a delicious breakfast of panco covered soft boiled eggs on a lovely bed of greens, I drove back to Fort Bragg to meet with Greg Tregoning to discuss what we (Pacific Textile Arts) can and cannot do with our limited funds which include the grant money we will be awarded by the Community Foundation in April. We will have to shelve the plans to pour a concrete slab to go under the arbor but we hope to begin construction on the arbor within several months. That will definitely give shelter to students and also serve as a kind of green house roofing over our Pacific Textile Arts courtyard and soon to be dye garden. Very exciting to begin working on the final plans for constructing this vital addition to our educational site.

I followed the meeting with Greg by going home, picking up a left over salad from Saturday night's dinner at D'Arelios and putting Bobby in the Realta RV. I hadn't driven it for at least eleven weeks and it came alive with the first turn of the key. I made several trips back into the house for the usual forgotten items and then we took off with the engine purring. I'm growing very fond of that little home on wheels.

We drove into town and up the road to the Mackerricher State Park and pulled in facing the water. Bobby could hardly wait to gallup along to the end of the boardwalk. It was super to be out there on such a beautiful day — so much warmer and windless than the previous day. When we returned to the Realta I left water for Bobby in a little pot and took my salad up a little knoll to a picnic table that looks out over the lower parking lot and the shoreline. Several friends stopped and visited while I sat and ate while reading my Kindle. The perfect day — delicious breakfast, a pleasant ride in my cheery, comfortable rig, a satisfying bit of exercise, a blissed out little dog— a happy and grateful lady.