Okay, anyway. So there just wasn't anything interesting to write about early last week. I left Friday morning around 10am and hit the road toward Humboldt County for a poultry show. This is the "off season" for showing, so it's really more of a social gathering with a few birds thrown in to justify getting together. I took 4 birds, which was all I could find with a relatively full set of feathers (they lose and regrow all the feathers this time of year).
It's a pretty drive, and though 6 hours long I do enjoy it. As I've said before I rather like driving alone, it's peaceful, and I can sing along to the radio except in the looooong stretches of mountain driving where there is no reception (nope, no CD player, no tape player, no iPod, I'm so primative!).
I try not to photograph the exact same stuff every time but there are some repeats... Here we go...
Highway 20, leaving the flat brown valley and heading into the mountains toward Clear Lake:
The view from a vista point on Highway 20:
My car! Some day this will be one of those photos I look back and say "yes, that's my first car, it was a good one, most of the time...." I know it looks like I'm parked on top of that post but I'm not!!
Clear Lake! It seemed more blue-green than I remember, but maybe I remembered wrong. It's huge, this is just one small part of it.
It's always interesting to see the land change from flat to rolling hills to mountains, and from brown to green. Oak to manzanita to redwood.
I arrived in Eureka around 4:30ish, checked in at the hotel, and headed over to the fairgrounds to get the birds settled in. It was small show as always, maybe 75 birds, but that's a lot better than it has been in the past. Winter time is the big show. All my friends had plans that evening so I ended up with a quiet evening on my own, drooling over Brendan Fraser in that mummy movie. *drool*
Saturday was a long day, but in a good way. Got the birds tidied up in the morning and then walked to the back of the fairgrounds to visit all the stabled horses, and cats. Two of my favorite critters in one location! There are loads of gorgeous horses boarded there, and a lot of tame feral cats. There are two Friesians, a mare and filly. To the best of my knowledge the filly is the same age as Shylah, so I love to see her twice a year and see how she has changed. She's huge, as big as her mother now. I'm sure they are friendly with everyone but I like to think they remember me, since the moment I round the corner they are looking at me with their heads up and ears pricked, that "hi!" horse posture. ;-)
The Friesian mare:
Mare on left, filly on right:
Adorable Fjord!
Lots of cats, many of them friendly. This one was adorable!
And then there was the doe and fawn. I have never seen a newborn fawn in the wild before! OMG soooooo cute! I kid you not when I say it was barely bigger than a cat. What kind of deer are these, anyone know? They're fairly small.
So after ogling the animals for while I went back to the poultry building and schmoozed with the poultry people (I need pics of me with my friends, I really do have friends!). There was a great BBQ lunch. One of my black Rosecomb pullets got Reserve Champion Bantam. Yay! Small show but I can still say yay. ;-)
I had talked to my fellow-poultry-artist friend A.R. (who won Best in Show) about going out to the beach after the show, since every year I really want to go see some of the local scenery (it's really the only show where this is possible, since normally I have to head right home afterwards, and it's cool enough there the birds can hang out in my car... big crate with food and water). So later on that afternoon, armed with directions, I headed up to her house. She listed some interesting landmarks that I would find at the base of the neighbor's driveway, so I would know I'm heading in the right direction. Yes indeed, I would call this an odd neighbor...
So off we went to the beach! She stopped at this wood bin along the way. This is funny to me, I mean sure you'll find heaps of stuff marked "free" around here but a bin dedicated to wood? That's so...organized! "Allison gets free wood" I told her I would put that on my blog and embarrass her. ;-)
Her dashboard decor made me laugh:
So first we went to Luffenholtz Beach (Point? Can't quite remember what it was called). We walked out on this high skinny strip of land (rock?) that overlooked the ocean. REALLY pretty, but I'd hate to slip off the edge! Pics from there:
She wanted to go to Moonstone Beach next but there was a wedding or something going on and it was so crowded there was no place to park. So we went north to Trinidad, and went to two different beaches but I don't know the name of either one. On one side, in a cove area, lots of fishing boats:
And lots of dead fish on the beach, ewww (A.C.'s dog Hobie checking out a fish):
Then we went out onto a pier. I saw several seals but they weren't exactly cooperating with my photographic ventures. Just as I would get it focused they would dive under. So no seal pics. But here's a gull instead, not that that's a great consolation:
Hobie was not too sure about walking on the pier:
And then we went over to the other side of this outcropping of land, to another beach. This one was very very pretty, the kind of place I would have loved to just sit and watch the waves (except it was getting to be dinner time and I was really hungry, so we just walked a while and then headed back). Pretty pics from here:
What fun! And sooo pretty, it's like a different world up there (and it sure makes it hard to want to come back home to 108 degrees, flat, and brown). This is exactly what I'd been wanting to do there for years, and I'm really glad we went out and toured around. :-) After leaving the beaches, A mentioned she knew of a place with a few Friesian stallions, if I wanted to go see those. Well heck yeah! So off we went, up up up a hill into a fairytale land of green grass, flowers, redwoods, and fog. It's just unreal to me to see places like that, especially this time of year!
And there they were:
Oh. My. Gosh. WOW. These guys know how gorgeous they are, no doubt. Stunning. They are so regal, I was just totally enthralled.
I wish I could have taken more photos but it was getting dark and everything was coming out blurry, and using the flash would have killed the fantasy fairyland mood. Besides, there's a limited amount of time you can keep a horse interested.
We headed back to A's house so I could get my car, and then she followed me back down to where I was staying in Eureka. Grabbed some dinner, then hung out with friends R.J. and W.L. for a while and talked about chickens and art and a little bit of everything else. That was pretty close to being a perfect day. :-)
It was all I could do to pry myself out of bed the next morning. I headed up to A's house again so I could pick up some birds she was selling to someone near here (they were just hitching a ride home with me), and ended up staying for delicious breakfast. What a gorgeous place, I am envious of all the green and flowers!
So here's two California girls... two poultry artists, and nevermind that her roosters could kick my rooster's butt. ;-)
I left around 11:30 and headed east on 299. I'd wanted to try out Hwy 36 this year (Fortuna to Red Bluff) after reading about it on someone's blog, but with recent car troubles (and being REALLY tired) I decided it was best not to chance it. Maybe next year! Anyway 299 is treacherous enough! ;-)
It's very curvy, with lots of tall trees:
Vista point.. this is where my door handle broke. *sigh* it still works, I can still get out of the car, but the inside door handle is now kinda loose. It concerns me, but not enough to get it fixed. I guess if it falls off I'll have to do something about it.
I don't remember seeing this burned area last time I drove through here (which would have been a year ago...)
So it was only a 3.5 hour drive on Sunday, because I didn't go home. I went to the Redding area and stayed with J.C. and D.C. overnight. Always a fun visit there, and I got to see the foals again, so cute! I was rather zombie-ish all day though.
I arrived back home mid day Monday, had a crazy couple days cleaning house and property, and lately have just been trying to avoid going outside. That's about it! Oh I'll post some art stuff later.
What an adventure. And it is nice to see you actually photographed with friends and chickens (HOW RARE!). I am glad you had fun and that your birds did well. Oh, and those Fresians! What a find!
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