The Avant Garden

we've had fun since I got back from California. Joshua and I went out to Bent Creek one Saturday morning and I stacked some things that had fallen while we were on vacation. Every now and then, Joshua would look up from his book and say, "You should build one from that rock right there to that rock right there." So I did until I had this:

Josh was a lot of fun to have along ...

 I caught this lizard:
Identify the genus and species to win fabulous cash and prizes!

either hunting or napping (or some combination thereof) atop HealthStack, the stack I built among the doghobble to remind me to send karma and pray for friends and family who  ail:
If reincarnated as a lizard, I want to perch there, too ...

 This past Saturday I went out to the best rockpile in Bent Creek and after four or five attempts, got this Bent Ladder thing:

Can ghosts knock stacks over?to stand. I wish that black rock that sorta holds the whole thing together was not guarded by that ghost you see in the photo. I could use it (the Stone, I mean, but the ghost is also welcome) in the Avant Garden proper.

Speaking of the Avant Garden proper, I fixed up the "Arch-on-Pedestal-Deluxe" out in the backyard, where the Queen Ann's Lace is blooming like mad:
Not many folks have one of these ... 

The River has been sadly low as of late, and while Rob vacationed, I went over to keep an eye on the place and fix some things, starting with the traditional (number 14 or 15?) RobsArch and companion piece. Together I call them RobsTwins:

A welcome home gift, Avant Garden-style ... I have a backache from lying on the sofa too much, but I will get back to the great outdoors soon. I have orders for several Serpents and am currently collecting their Stone.  The  Meditation Garden is looking very nice as the ferns fill out.  Will take photos soon. If you read this far, it is incumbent upon you to do something today to make the world a little more interesting, even if for only a short time. Now, off you go ... go on, get busy ...

After Yosemite, King's Canyon and Sequoiah, we headed for Cayucos, a little town on the central coast. We first stopped by Morro Rock, a huge blob of solid rock in the surf surrounded by many smaller rocks covered in bird droppings. The other four Russells played in the surf while I did a few simple balances, then I took this photo of them through an arch-on-a -pedestal I had just built: 
They built sandcastles like good kids do ...              

 Also that afternoon, I built a "Three Arches on Four Rocks" thing, as we shall see in a mo. 
I came back around sunset, a rather windy one, and built these flat earth stacks for the occasion:
There were seagulls everywhere ...
As I left, I passed the "Three Arches on Four Rocks" that I had done earlier that day and a seagull that very moment plopped down on top of it:

I asked him not to knock it over, and he didn't...

The next day I went to the northern end of the beach at Cayucos and did these simple standers, delighting the passersby. Included among the passersby were many early-teenage boys, so I didn't expect the standers to survive the night, but Cayucosians are cooler than I thought:

Surprisingly, the locals hadn't seen something like this before ....The next day I went back for sunset at Morro Rock, of course. Some of the previous day's work was still standing and I added as much as I could before the sunset:
I saw an otter while doing this ...

 Of those, these were my two faves, and the seagulls are cool, too:
Pretty basic stacks, but a nice setting ...

After that we headed to Los Angeles and I didn't stack again until I got back home to the rocks that I know and love. It was a great trip, one I hope to repeat, but with more time and rocks.

Oh, and I searched all over the place for Bill Dan but did not find him.  Zach Pine and I missed each other this trip, but I hope to go back out and visit soon. There are enough rocks in California for all of us.

... we're back from a vacation that requires recovery time. Fortunately, I have to go to work-work tomorrow.  Vacation isn't for resting; it's for listening to your kids talk about farts while standing in front of the largest living thing on the planet.  And it's for playing with the abundant and varied rocks if that is the kind of thing you do.  And I did, starting with a stop at our favorite old beach in Half Moon Bay, where the kids got sunburned on the first day of vacation while dad did this:
Good, aggressive rocks make things easy ... 

Rodeo Beach on the west side of the Marin Headlands was always a favorite on my tour of the Bay Area, and we wound up there the next day where I did these simple delicates:

Tempting the anti-pain policy we try to enforce in the Avant Garden ...

and a few other things.

Saturday morning we bolted back over the Golden Gate to Stinson Beach and had a fish-n-chips powered play session: 
Stinson Beach -- we got there early enough we could have auctioned our parking space later ... 

We went on to Yosemite, which was so crowded I had a hard time finding a place private enough to mess with rocks.  I did a few little things, but nothing of import.

I had had a discussion with my shy nine-year-old (Joshua) about one of the good things about vacation is that you can do anything you want and make as big a fool of yourself as you wish because chances are you will never, ever see these people again. So while in Yosemite Valley I did a balance by the Merced River that I asked my daughter to knock over so that no one would get hurt were it to fall as they walked by, and Joshua piped up, "Why do you care? You're never going to see these people again." We knocked it over anyway.

Yosemite Valley was too crowded to play in privacy, so we put the rented minivan in park and took off for the Emerald Pools up above Vernal Falls in the upper end of Yosemite Valley.  I played around the valley a wee bit, but only took this one photo worth showing off:

The Vernal Falls Rainbow is probably glowing right now ...