For my birthday, I slept in; had jerk chicken for breakfast, courtesy of Beasa; and went for a bike ride. I saw two beavers! (separately) – the first one was in the road, reluctant to decide I was a threat, although he eventually did, and trundled over a few feet and astonished me by disappearing down a hole I did not see (indeed, I went to check it out and didn’t see it til I was on top of it). The second took cover a bit quicker, but only into the ditch, where he sat up and watched me until I was pretty close before ducking down into (I think) a culvert. My growing observation about beavers is that they are rather cautious, but also curious, and can’t stand to go underground until they’ve checked me out.
I also saw a great blue heron in flight harassed by a red-tailed hawk who dived at it several times before they flew off in different directions. I felt lucky to see this (mouth open, not looking where the bike was going), but I don’t understand why the conflict!
Then I got back to the Airbnb property and did my yoga under a big coniferous tree of some sort… This past week I’ve been working to recover my yoga practice which I lost some years ago. I’d practiced for most of 10 years, and losing this has been truly a loss, but this last week has been encouraging: it comes back more quickly than I’d thought, and much of it remains intuitive. My body still has a ways to go, but I find this practice returns my body to me generously. That’s a birthday gift I’m giving myself; and it’s also a gift from my dear friend Susan, who for years was my yoga teacher. She’s joined me a few days on speaker phone to help me get back into things. Thanks, friend.
Jerk chicken for lunch again, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon continuing to sweat: I applied three tubes of silicone caulk to Foxy, still trying to fix her leak. And I cleaned her windows. Then I mostly lay around and drank a few All Day IPAs and went to bed… happy day, y’all.
