......
THE VERY NEXT DAY, I was back at the park to discover, lo and behold, another first! It looked for all the world as though the man walking down the path ahead of me had a glider plane in his hand.



Sure enough, he did!



Whoop-de-do! I thought. Watching these air flights will be great entertainment while I travel by foot!



Sure enough, it was!



I stopped for a chat with the pilot and he happily shared flight instructions with me, even (gasp) let me fling the plane into the air a few times!

I'm going to have to get me one of these things! I said to myself.
......

......

I WAS TAKING A STROLL in my park the other day, and saw a sight I've never seen there before: Gold-diggers!

I soon noticed there was a whole passel of 'em. "It's a good hobby for all of us to do as a family," explained the mother. She had just found a quarter!
"But," she rued, "it's not an old one. Anything before 1964 is good--it's silver!"
(Okay, Reader Dear, I won't quibble. They were silver-diggers!)

Oh, my, it sounded good to me--just wave the magic wand
until it tells you where the treasure is buried. Then dig a little hole.





The suspense!
The discovery!
The excitement!
"I've gotta get me one of these things!" I exclaimed.




And then. Well.




I began to realize that more than just liking
the idea of gold-digging (er, silver-digging)......
I would really have to DIG IT!

...

......

THIS AFTERNOON I HAD A HANKERIN' to film a Western movie, so I called on my Little Actor to play the horse-ridin' role. Fortunately, he happened to be right in my filming area, and he gladly obliged!



He really seemed to relish learning to know the
horse, getting into character.



After I showed him how to mount and dismount,
he learned the ropes so fast he was soon giving me
instructions! He was having such a high old time
riding the range ("Look at me go!") But he did say
with a sigh, "This is hard work!"



Well, I would suppose, wouldn't you, Viewer Dear,
 acting can't all of it be fun and games.
......

......

LAST NIGHT AS I WENT TO bed, I inquired of my yard man, "Do you like radishes? Why ever did you bring a big bunch of radishes and leave them on the kitchen counter?!"
"They are beets!" he replied.
"Well, they would have to be awfully tiny beets! I think they are radishes!" I responded. Then, just to leave no doubt about the situation, I added: "I don't like radishes!"
"Someone gave them to me," he said. "I thought they were beets."

I'm sorry to say, Reader Dear, I left those radishes to wilt on the counter. But this morning, when I took a closer look, they appeared to be somewhat beet-like. That small clump of radishes even smelled like beets. When I cut into one, there was no more disguise; it was the splitting image of a beet! So I separated those beatific little beets from the lovely wilted beet tops, and I set them to cooking.



When I sliced those gorgeous little geometric gems onto the supper salads, they looked fit for a king!

......
I was so long away, Reader Dear, that when I spent time back at my park today, it felt like a small vacation in a foreign land! Perhaps that explains my exhilaration when I'd put on my walking shoes, did a few stretches, and set out on the path.  The flower-strewn path!  Birds exclaiming what cheer! (What cheer, indeed!)



I'm hoping it explains, as well, Viewer Dear, my spying on the locals (camera-happy tourist that I was!) That duck couple was on their honeymoon; please don't ask me how I know (I sincerely wish I had the footage to prove it, Dear Viewer [alas, non-viewer, as the case appears to be] but by the time I quite realized what was going on...why that male was...hmm...well, I didn't know it was the male until...oh, my goodness...let's just say I felt guilty already with my long-range lens and my sneaky ways!)

But new life...yes, new life is what it's all about! There were signs of it everywhere at my park. I took so many pictures of new life that the new life began to seem old (well, not really, but it's getting old now, as I try to sort through all the photos!)





So that's all I'm going to show you.
Hard (for me) to believe, but that's it!


.........

......

WE HAD FIVE SOCK-FOOTED guests today (the yard man and I), and a few with bare feet. That's what one gets when one's overnight-spending friends are Dutch-born and Dutch-descended and-or considerate Canadians!

Partially due to having these good guests, our fine fortune extended to a breakfast of bacon, asparagus and heaven-scented homemade bread in addition to the bright-yellow scrambled eggs, and the locally just-picked stunning strawberries!



















Much later in the day, we met at the home of the famed Little Actor (blood relative of each and every one of us, guests and all, so lucky are we!) Then walking and-or riding in a stroller, we made our way into the city for supper at a Peruvian restaurant.*


















Everyone wore shoes.














*Only one of us had the bountiful bowl of soup with the seafood swimming.  (It was delicious, she said.)

......