This morning mom and I decided to go take our walk around Atascadero Lake. We hadn’t been out there for some time, and always enjoy ourselves when we do. It was very quiet; we only passed, or rather we were passed by two walkers and three joggers. Usually the road around the lake is packed with walkers, joggers, bikers and dogs. It was peaceful and pleasant.

At one point a wee critter popped its head out of a hole just off the dirt pathway. At first I thought it might be a toad, but upon closer inspection discovered it was a cute, fuzzy-muzzled beastie. We stopped and watched as it continued to pop in and out of the hole, apparently doing some upkeep to his burrow, using his front teeth to shape the opening of his hole. We debated what it might be – a gopher, such as what we think we might have in our own yard? Or perhaps a vole? (Since returning from our walk, I’ve looked it up online and decided it was probably a California vole. At least that’s what it looks like to me; you can judge for yourself:)

Whatever he is, he’s darn cute! It would’ve been tempting to try to pet him, but he might have the plague, so we left him to his home maintenance project, and moved on.

Anyway, further along the lake we encountered two families of ducks – one mama duck with two little fuzzy ducklings, and another mama duck with several older offspring.

And, of course there were pretty flowers:

It’s such a nice lake – despite the drainage issues, murky water and swampy smell – and park. It’s too bad the city didn’t spend that $1.2M on fixing up this park, rather than the perfectly-fine-as-it-was Sunken Gardens in the middle of town. Oh, well. I guess we can’t have everything. (Though, in Atascadero we can’t have anything, not even a Wal-Mart because there are way too many stupid people in this town! Grr!)