Rancho San Antonio

As previous posts attest, Rancho San Antonio on the border of Cupertino and Los Altos Hills is one of our favorite places for family outings, and we finally ventured there today, for the first time since Raya's birth. In a fantasy life some time in the future, this is the sort of landscape that I'd like to see outside my window, far from the highway, the crowds, the noise--

 It was a short trip, and we didn't make it to the farm, as we always did with only Sava in tow, but we stopped at a little creek instead and spent about half an hour playing there. Sava threw stones and leaves in the water, and he pretended to fish with various sticks--

(Sava loves to play with water. All children do, but he especially so. I remember reading somewhere that highly sensitive children find water soothing, and this is beyond doubt the case for him. If we are having a tense day at home, or I have other things to do and need to keep him busy, I often turn on the water in the kitchen, give him a cup or two and leave him. He can stand there pouring water, letting the water run through his fingers, doing whatever else he does, for hours. Running water in particular, as from a sink or in a river, calms him down like little else. When we go back to Montana some day, I hope to expose him to some fly-fishing. Who knows--maybe some day when he is older he'll find his soul wading in a river looking for the perfect trout.)
Raya mostly looked on, and since she didn't take a nap on the way there and became cranky eventually, we had to head back home earlier than we might have wished.

 However briefly, it felt wonderful to be outdoors again--