Another warm day in California’s Central Valley and once again Leroy and I dog-walked a bit on the Rascal Bike Path here in Merced. Although breezy outside the path, hot and near-still strolling along it.
Summer looks close and Leroy was starting to labor some after about an hour. We need to hit the walk earlier.

A lot of folks taking advantage of the pastoral, winding trail today — other dog-walkers, joggers and a number of small family like groups, maybe the most I’ve encountered lately. Back in the day (six weeks ago, maybe) this number of people were found generally on a Sunday afternoon, a weekend.
Nowadays, what’s a ‘weekend‘?

Leroy…

We were slower than normal this outing, don’t know why, but Leroy wanted to smell every leave, blade of grass and anything else within nose distance.

A pix of what I call the ‘Grove of the Humming.’ Last month, I think it was, hard to tell, city workers cleared away foliage and tree branches from the Rascal, and along the adjoining creek. The process took several days and workers hauled away a shitload of debris — the path area is well maintained.
Anyway, for days afterward this little space adjacent to El Portal Drive entrance/exit experienced a loud, continuous humming noise, sounded similar to a mass of bees, up in the trees, or around about, but I could see anything at all, no bees, no nothing. The sound then just disappeared.
There was an uproar from crows and other birds along the creek during this time, too, as a lot of homes for insects, birds, squirrels probably, and all kinds of creatures were uprooted and destroyed during the clearing out of the area.
A lot of noise in the air for awhile, but now just quiet and unruffled.

Leroy near-dragging his tongue…

(Again, forgive the date/time stamp, pisses me off, though).