On with life at Maple Ridge

This part of my blog will be about  special events here in Maple Ridge, this quiet refuge from my past active life.

I have a 2-room apartment and a my balcony overlooks the railroad track, and on most mornings a man ranting incoherently walked down the  track and thru Ashland (west to east) around 9AM and returned later, still ranting. But lately he has stopped appearing.

The train has been very irregular since my arrival here on 8/7 and travels only after dark. I was told the switch from day to night was to avoid sparks during the fire season. The first train was in the early morning around 5. As of today (8/10) I will keep a record of its appearance and report it after a few weeks. So far there has been no regularity. It has been very occasional and sometimes hasn’t appeared for seveal days, coincident with a fierce heat wave.. I think COVID-19 is the disruptor.

Movies are shown twice a day and are often good ones I haven’t seen. They are not well attended, 5 people is a crowd. Some are duds, like an old Bogart one with Ava Gardner, “The Barefoot Contess”. She was one of several worst-but-gorgeous actresses of her time. I later sent for some Carole Lmbard oldies and she was beautiful but a poor actress also. Some have been fun, like one with Ed Harris and Diane Keaton, both very good actors.

On 8/20 a cardboard cutout of a horse appeared in rhe dining room. It looks so real from a few feet away you want to mount it and go for a ride. It was donated anonymously by an anonymous supporter in town. A few days latr a cow appeared. I thought we might have a barnyard but there have been no additions at this writing, a month later.

The horse cutout

A few days later a cow appeared as a companion to the horse. I thought we might have a barnyard with chickes and pigs,  but nothing more has appeared.

A cow joins the horse

On Sep 5 we refreshed the street painting on Faith Ave. Not a Maple Ridge event but a big one for me. It was 3 years old and very warn and dirty. The whole neighborhood came out and it went very fast. Some of the flowers were enhanced by new painters – a metamortophosis had taken place. And I was happy to see it.

The first painting, 2017

 

Original red poppies

 

New red poppies 2020
First painting of driveway poppies; Karen, River and Rachel.

 

Neighbor Mike refreshing an orange poppy.

 

Daughter Jenny and neighbor Kat working hard

 

When the refreshing was done, Mike refreshed the driveway painting, and had a cluster of neighbors watching and sipping wine, a happy neighborhood event.


Back at Maple Ridge,  A doe with two fawns spent a lot of time on the grass noth of my building during the first weeks.

But when a heat wave struck in late August they retreated to the south side of the building.

And then they went elsewhere and have been seen only acarcely for a month. I am puzzled as they seemed so at home and because they were sometimes joned by another doe with fauns. To be continued.

Maple Ridge seems as good as a retirement home could be, what with a worldwide epidemic underway. I don’t want to judge until I have experienced its unhampered state, whenever that will be. What I know now is that the precautions taken seemed to have worked as there have been no cases of CoViD-19 here as yet.