The Things One Sees in Trees

We were sitting in the living room having coffee this morning and John was trying to make out what the 'white blob' in a tree up the canyon was. I thought it was an egret and was sure of it when a second one landed on an adjacent tree. The camera is an excellent substitute for binoculars and I took this picture while I was at it.Even though the birds aren't that clear,  I liked the textures and colors of the silver eucalyptus in the foreground, the framing oak branches and the misty background.

The mist didn't last long and by the time the gardeners arrived to plant all the new plants in front of the house it was getting quite warm. I provided them with ice and offered shade under the umbrella in the back, but Gustavo found a better place to cool off. I had to get the camera out again to see if my eyes were deceiving me when I saw him climbing up a live oak on the front lawn to relax on a branch about 15 feet above the ground. 

The amount of work he and his sidekick Ramon Luis did in four hours was impressive, planting plants, installing irrigation to the new plants, trimming, weeding, and weed whacking the tall grass along the side of the property which is hilly and tricky even to walk on. All in black sweatshirts which they never removed.

We are celebrating tonight because John passed his written driving test,  required every five years for everyone over some age not specified anywhere I could find, in order to renew their driver's license. He failed the first time, a combination of overconfidence and an inability to memorize random facts. The overconfidence born of the fact that most people who have been driving safely for 60 years or more assume they know the rules of the road. Not so, as many people have found to their dismay. 

The test is filled with questions like how many feet away must an oncoming car be before you dim your headlights? Picking the most logical answer from the multiple choices is not necessarily the right one.  You dim your headlights as soon as you see an oncoming car. Who knows how many feet away they are? Memorizing arbitrary numbers like that is no longer John's forté., but that doesn't change the fact that he is a good driver and it would be a huge blow to his independence if he couldn't drive because he didn't know how many feet away from an oncoming car you must be to pull out of a parking space.

We considered a ceremonial burning of the 100+ page long California Drivers Handbook but since that would be a fire hazard we will have a ceremonial flinging of it into the recycle bin instead.