Ozzie's Swimming Hole

We used to walk often down the road past Spring Lake and along the border of Annadel State Park to this wide spot in Santa Rosa Creek where the water was deep enough for Ozzie to swim and fetch sticks. There are lots of trails with bikes, horses and people in Annadel but dogs are not allowed in this beautiful park that we see from our Kitchen window, or any State Park, for that matter. 

We decided to go there this morning in hopes of finding a safe place for Spike to have a swim. The pond was quite diminished this late in the summer, but still looking quite welcoming in the dappled shade of the maple trees The access down to it however was anything but. A short but steep descent used to have a sturdy rope beside it to keep one from pitching down onto the little rocky beach, but today, the cut was deeper, the descent steeper, there was a huge fallen log blocking the bottom and the rope has disappeared. We sat for awhile on a bench there and remembered Ozzie and how much he loved this place before turning for home again.

It felt like a very long walk back. I don't really like a long flat walk on asphalt. We were all flagging by the time we finally got back to the car.
It was interesting to see some of the houses situated along the creek before coming to the park entrance, but without the promise of a dip for Spike at the end I don't know how soon we will do it again. 

Despite being surrounded by hills and close to the very busy Spring Lake Park, we are still searching for a walk similar to those in the Berkeley Hills' Tilden Regional Park, a short drive away from our house in Berkeley. Dogs could be off lead and co-existed with other dogs and equestrians with no problems. I don't miss a lot about Berkeley, but I do miss the wonderful walks we found in the Berkeley/Oakland Hills.

I played with my new fabrics, relishing their colors and trying to catalog them by color in case I have to order more.  This is one of my favorite parts about starting a new quilt...playing with the fabric. My neighbor said she loved the prototype and we had an interesting talk over dinner about the luxury of being able to be creative without. worrying about making money from it. She is hoping to make some money from her painting but is finding that other demands on her time are cramping her style.