Summer Days

The summer heat has kicked in.

Hot and humid days, and evenings most often filled with a thunderstorm or two, cooling the night air.
Parents have begun shopping for school attire and supplies, since it's not too long before the children return to their scholastic schedules.
The first of the homegrown tomatoes and juicy watermelons,  delightuflly fill our plates each day, the fruits of summer.
And the rhythm of life continues.

Bee-ing Busy

The garden is all abuzz, with bees, and butterflies, lightning bugs and ladybugs.

All so very busy dutifully distributing the pollen amongst the flowers.
I thank them more than words can say.

 

 

 

 

 Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry
Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.
His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!

~ Emily Dickinson : The Bee (1830)

 

 

 

 

Through The Garden Gate

                                                   Sunshine and the humming of bees.

Makes for happy flowers.

 

Summer Days

Long summer days, lend hope to ticking off some of those ' to-do ' chores around the place.

Summer flowers are hanging limp on the vine, several of the perennials have already stopped blooming for the season, and others are just arriving.

We'll be pulling, and weeding, and digging and tending, until the first frost arrives.

I spent the day at my daughter's hobby farm yesterday, she's having a clean-out, seems we always accumulate too much stuff !
We are open to suggestions :)

The donkeys followed us as we drove up on the hill, hoping we were carrying vanilla wafers, they will do anything for a handful.
Inside the barn,  the swallows' nests are filled with babies. Such a sweet sight, watching those little yellow beaks appearing over the nests, when their parents were within earshot.

Nature never fails to renew my spirit.