The details of yesterday.

Ukiah is approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes from our current home. It is a beautiful drive - especially this time of year and at times allows one to feel as if they've left the "desert" and found beauty. The leaves are beautiful shades of yellow, green, orange and red. The tall pines sway in the cool fall air, and as you venture south along the winding highway, you can see the storms brewing above the beautiful mountains. There are many old abandon homesteads with remnants of a building or two and maybe even a windmill. The cows graze in their summer pastures for their last few weeks of "freedom" in the mountains, and really, on those drives where the compass shows S, everything seems right in the world.

Yesterday, our trip to Ukiah was to celebrate the life of a dear friend and fellow agricultural businessman. His memorial service gave wonderful tribute to his incredible gift of making friends with practically anyone who crossed his path and his love of life.

As I've said before, this life I live is not one I would have seen myself living 10 years ago. I wouldn't be sitting in a cabin near Camas Creek laughing about and remembering my interactions with this man who hauled our hay and cattle. I wouldn't have perched on a stump and watched my two boys run around a stock trailer trying to catch their dad. I wouldn't have seen beauty in the cattle coming down from the "high ground." I just wouldn't.

But, I do now. I love the feel of the fire against my legs when I walk into Karl's cabin. I enjoy the sound of the crisp mountain air rushing through the trees. I smile as I see the "red" cattle wind around the path that leads to the river. I treasure my days spent in Ian's "heaven."

I sat in a tiny church yesterday, with many people I didn't know. I enjoyed a potluck lunch with the friends of our dear friend Paul. I remembered him and his passion for life & treasured my own family even more.

These photos I take, these bends in the river that are calling to be enjoyed, the leaves and trees that surround one of my favorite places in the whole world... they are gifts only God can give. I've opened my eyes to a lot of new things in the past 10 years, and my camera has given me many opportunities to capture that which we are blessed enough to call "ours."

I choose to document these things - these people, these places, these surroundings that mean everything to me ... to us ... because there are many people who don't have the opportunity to see what we see or do what we do ... and if I can share this beauty with even one other person, I'm sharing God.

Have a beautiful week.

Full of smiles, laughter & clapping because that's what life is about

... and really

- just between you and me -

I heard it again yesterday ... life is a gift we're supposed to enjoy.

{God makes the pictures. I just take them.}

~ Ed H. Urqhardt