2 p.m.
Antelope Community Park
cool - seeing more of the sun than we have for many many days. The low cloud layer that has blanketed the valley is breaking up for the first time in over a week.
The sun feels good on my back and there's no wind to steal away the warmth. I'm drawn to the curve of the path around a tree, I think I called the tree "birdsong oak" before.
There are fewer birds to hear today. The oaks are bare of leaves and I can see a couple birds in the branches: a scrub jay, little brown sparrows, earlier a magpie, now I see two magpies lightly hopping from branch to branch, picking at something - maybe like the ants or fly that have landed on the old long I'm sitting on. A tiny black beetle crawls slowly up the stump next to me.
I loaded the camera with a new film pack, made a shot of a nearby dead tree and the film pack stuck - then just lunched itself. Four sheets of film later, and a trip back to the car to clean the rollers and clear the film pack, a test just to make sure, and I'm back in business.
Not to be deterred by malfunctioning equipment, I return to the dead tree. Even stripped of branches it still has a bit of beauty. Dead itself, it still fosters life, several times I've seen woodpeckers flying in and out of it's dark cavities. I'm guessing that they nest there in the spring and summer.
A slight breeze kicks up - the sky has been nearly cleaned of clouds while I was fighting the film pack. We'll see how long the clouds stay away.
