Here's a photo of the flowers in the yard and Emma in her Elf hat from the North Pole showing off her first eggplant grown in the turtle sandbox-way to go!

If you click on the photo you have a better look at the raspberry and the bug/bee(?)

Late Summer Mushrooms:



Dave and I worked on replacing screens. It was fun and could be done in the shade inside the house. Yesterday we went to the library. I got some good things. Today I listened through the 2006 Phil Lesh and Friends cds. Things seemed a bit rough in the beginning of the live performance at the Warfield in San Francisco, but they were much tighter and in sync with each other by the second cd. I like hearing Joan Osborn with them.

We were good doggy parents and took Jake for an extended walk. He got to sit in the creek at least five times. We tried discouraging him from heading straight down steep, rocky embankments, but all he cared about was getting wet and getting cool.

Here are some more of the shots inside the rocks that form the ice cave. In the really dark area where there was a little water fall, we didn't have our flashlight with us, and I was precariously poised on a rock trying to take pictures. The ones in that area are blurred. The ones in the lighter area don't quite give the feeling of being in the rooms formed by the rocks, but at least they aren't all blurry. Next time before we climb in (the photo of Dave climbing out in the previous photos below looks like he's emerging from a birth canal) we'll remember to take the flashlight, not leave it with our picnic stuff outside the rocks.

The photos above of Dave with the flashlight in a lower room (we went back and got the flashlight) show the difference without and with the camera flash on the camera--which I should have turned on while poised on the rock in the dark).

Here are some pictures to show the scope and vastness of the rocks within which the ice cave was hidden, also a picture of my hiking companions. Thanks John for taking us on roads upon which our car would not have been able to make it. It's remarkable to know that such a pretty place is so close to our house, thank you for sharing it.

We went hiking to an ice cave with John. Since it's the end of August, there wasn't any ice in the cave, but there was a waterfall and we found two separate rooms in the rocks, also it was so cold inside,even though it was in the 80's-90's, you could see your breath inside.