good morning

this morning dawned impossibly soft and beautiful,

weak shafts of sunlight weaving their way between the trees in the back yard

and laying in thin slices across the lawn.

only for a moment, though,

until high clouds drifted by and erased them all.

sometimes life feels like an etch-a-sketch,

draw and erase, come and go.

this is tough for a dreamer like me,

one who enjoys nothing more than to fall into reverie

in the beauty of a moment and get lost in time,

only to come to my senses and find everything mysteriously changed.

this is probably why i like art and photography so much,

allowing me the opportunity to hold that moment

and return to it at any time.

i went out to feed the horses and donkeys

and came upon an industrious bunny who was up with the sun

creating what appears to be her future home–

right next to the horse feeder.

as with most of our bunnies,

this one was not at all alarmed at my proximity

and quite content to continue her work

as i continued mine.

this gives me one more area to tip toe around for a little while.

did i tell you we were growing bunnies in our garden?

indeed…

whilst weeding one evening the ground suddenly gave way,

and this surprising view unfolded!

mama bunny was quite concerned,

but i told her not to fear and we just hand watered everything

for a few days.

it wasn’t long before they left their cozy nest.

one of them has taken up residence

between the tack room and the stall,

and this itty bitty hopper is only about

four inches long!

baby robins have fledged

and i came across this one in the yard who just froze

and let me take a bunch of photos.

as soon as i was finished it hopped over to mama robin

and was duly rewarded with a feeding.

i hope that it winds up a bit smarter than some of its compatriots around here

who smack into our plate glass windows with alarming regularity.

i put a shout-out to my instagram friends for ways to deter

the birds from flying into the reflective surface and received a host

of good ideas.  now we’re hanging crystals and other bright shiny objects

in the windows to scare them away, unless they happen to be

bowerbirds such as myself…

because who doesn’t like crystals and bright shiny objects?

suddenly it’s mid-july and the yard and garden are going crazy.

after a cool, cloudy spring and early summer

things were not looking too hopeful,

but now that we’re reaching temps in the 90’s and more sunlight

growth is quite rapid.

we had lots of free irrigation water this spring due to snowmelt,

and all of this community has been irrigating heavily.

we ran water last saturday and i made a video of it

flowing through our back yard deeply watering the trees.

it made me so very happy to just stand out there and watch the water move.

i love stuff like that.

perhaps i’m dull.

sunday morning we called all the kids at 6 a.m. and had them report STAT

with their shop-vacs and buckets then proceeded to spend

the next 12 hours removing  two inches of water from our basement.

dammit.  dull and simple.

and we were being so careful…

we’ve spent the better part of this past week recovering from that,

industrial fans roaring into the night.

things look good, mighty good considering that brandt has his library down there

with thousands of volumes lining all the walls.

in our defense, the water came up through the floor drains due to the high

water table and we were not the only ones who flooded.

thank goodness it was clean, clear water.

other things the past month has brought are beautiful clouds and sunsets,

evening reads on the deck,

our own home-grown hay to pick up and stack in the barn,

walks wherein the beauty of nature was appreciated,

simultaneous horse training and horse loving,

heaps of fun with the grandkids,

and oh…

did i mention irrigation??

i hope that your days are bringing you an abundance

of everything summer should be.

thanks for being here, friends!

xoxo