![\"233.above](\"https:\/\/lisathorpeartist.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/11\/233-above-westside-road-11-04.jpg?resize=1050%2C785\")
The view from the Ranch where I walked today. I painted this painting a few years back on a day much like today.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n I went for a walk this morning with my old dog Lucky. She sniffed and barked at birds and phantoms, and followed the scent of last night\u2019s fox or bobcat or stray cat with her stout short legged body bolting with such vigor and speed that seems impossible as seen prone on the couch- belly up and snoring. We walked the open pasture that rises up above road and looked out long across the valley of vineyards in full fall color. The hills and paths are just springing green, only an inch or so of rain has fallen in this drought stricken place, but the seeds that have lain dry and waiting were ready, sinking roots into the newly dampen earth to start a fresh green journey through another cycle of seasons. You my dear readers who don\u2019t live in California and are always in the greening life, may not understand what a dramatic switch this is. We Californians like to call our hills golden in the dry hot summer and fall, which they are for a while but then they turn a brown grey like a burro\u2019s back, waiting, waiting for rain. It came last week and this week the green has returned. Visible at first only in the mowed paths now showing more as the weeks advance stretching above the bent brown heads of it\u2019s fallen parents. And today I was here to claim this bright, tenacious gift of exuberant hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pleasure is spread through the earth in stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find. -William Wordsworth I went for a walk this morning with my old dog Lucky. She sniffed and barked at birds and phantoms, and followed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[37,88,96],"tags":[7,477,21],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-inspiration","category-spiritual","tag-art","tag-landscape-painting","tag-the-bishops-ranch"],"yoast_head":"\n