R&R in Idyllwild

The Photographer and I took off a week and headed to Idyllwild for some R&R. We rented a cabin and had high hopes for a restful week of reading, nature photography and, of course, knitting.



Pay attention to the woodburning stove - it plays a central party during our stay.

There was lots of sitting in the woods even if it was a bit nippy.


Beautiful foliage


It was full Spring there; everything was in bloom. Lilac

Manzanita, which I've never seen in bloom before,


And I finally outside the market we found a Dogwood in bloom.

It was beautiful with the sunlight reflecting off the flowers.

Lots of wildlife. Must have been twenty rabbits living under the brush around our cabin.


Blue Jays came onto the porch railing to eat the crackers we put out.

They were such an amazing blue; around San Diego we only have Western Scrub Jays that don't have the same bright plumage.

Red Headed Woodpeckers nesting in a tree just off our back deck. I was surprised to see that they actually do make perfectly round holes in the tree. The Photographer sat out there for close to an hour waiting for the Mother Bird to come out and go back in so he could capture the images.








Lots of rock climbers in town. Can you believe they climb here!

Sorry, I don't know which mountain this is.

We walked around Fulmore Lake; really pretty early in the morning.


Then we come to this crazy guy!!!

I'm am not a bird watcher; I have no idea if he's even a true Woodpecker, all I know is that this one likes to do his jack-hammer pecking on the top of our cabin's stove pipe. If you put a large metal trash can on your head and then someone used a percussion hammer on the outside that's what it was like from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. every morning. He gave us an encore around sunset each evening. The noise came down the chimney pipe and was broadcast via the cast-iron woodburning stove like a huge speaker. So forget the "rest" part of R&R. We were told that this particular woodpecker has been harrasing the whole neighborhood rat-a-tat-tatting on everyone's metal chimneys. Crazy Bird!

We finally gave up and left the cabin in the woods a couple days early to go home and sleep in the city where it's quiet.

As we decended in altitude we saw the fog rolling in. It was like watching the tide come in; ebb and flow just like a large body of water.


Except for Mr. Crazy Bird we had a good time.

Knitting content next post.

All photos by The Photographer