The Heat Of Summer Has Arrived

It's that time of year when sultry skies break into afternoon thunderstorms and my husband can sometimes find it difficult to find just an hour or two of time when the lawn is dry enough for mowing. It's always a mad dash for him to get out there and git-er done before another storm pops up. I appreciate his tenacity.

 This summer seems to be a bit difficult for our dear Rowdy who had his tenth birthday on the tenth of June.  His breathing just seems for labored and I worry about him no only because of his breathing issue, but because he has suffered two seizures this year.  Horribly painful for us to watch, and when the seizure is over he is confused and stumbles around for nearly an hour afterwards.  Please keep him in your thoughts as he ages.  He's such a dear heart.

We put a trail cam on one of our trees in the front yard a few weeks ago and have had some fun visitors.  LOTS of deer, a possum, this raccoon,

and a somewhat young bear.

I look forward to seeing what's on the cam's card every morning.

My husband has placed two bird feeders in the front yard which has drawn numerous species of birds, some of which have become very territorial of this area of the yard.  The house finches.  There are many times 10-20 of them on the feeders not leaving much room for the other songbirds, although they are not shy about eating any seeds that have been tossed to the ground by the finches. The birds are fun to watch and it usually sends me Googling for information on each species.

Recently this red-bellied woodpecker has been paying us a visit and he tosses so many seeds to the ground that we have to shoo him away.  Woodpeckers generally prefer eating suet, but so do bears, so we will not be putting any suet out for him, he'll just have to rely on finding bugs on dead trees in our forest.

The cardinals enjoy the rusty bench beneath our arbor where they wait to snag seeds from the ground now that the woodpecker is hogging their share at the feeders.

 I could only find three African Blue Basil this year.  They are getting harder and harder to come by since they are a 100% propagated basil due to being a non-seeding plant.  Some years the businesses that propagate them either don't do enough for sale or are having a difficult time getting propagation to work well.  We may try to propagate a few ourselves this fall and see if we can do better than the businesses.

 Sunset on the solstice was pretty awesome, and by 9:15pm we were still awaiting the sun to completely disappear. Mother Nature, Science, Astronomy, the Earth, it can all be quite breathtaking.

 The following morning the sunrise was blocked out by fog.  Such a significant change from last night.

 This is the deer that will not and would not go away.  She showed up in the front yard and began nibbling at my wisteria, so I opened the door and she bolted up the berm and into the wood.... but I watched her closely as she snuck around to the other side of the house......

 and she thought I couldn't see her behind this butterfly bush.  BUT, when she realized that I am smarter than the average bear and I raised my arms into the air to make myself appear quite large, she once again disappeared into the woods. 

  LOL  

 So the butterfly bushes are in bloom and with that event comes the appearance of butterflies in the yard.

The heat of summer has truly arrived, and we are spending it for the most part here at home unless groceries or doctor appointments require us to don a mask and head to town.  

Life is simple and sweet for us here in the Virginia countryside.

Thanks for stopping by today.

We wish you well.