08-31-2024 August Friends Family Fires and Fun

Sometimes writing about August can be a challenge. I often refer to the "dog days of August" since it is usually the hottest month. I dread the smoke, the stagnant air, the lack of rain, the drying grasses, and wilted flowers. It can be a difficult month.

Magnificent mid-August thunderstorm

This year was different. August had some heat, some wilting, and a bit of a water problem, but in the midst of it, there were some truly remarkable moments. I treasure the photo above because it reminds me of the beautiful, soaking rain that visited us for two days mid-month.

Our crepe myrtle is a late-blooming variety, not opening fully until late in August

When our acre is dry and we are trying to parse water to the places that need it most, there is nothing quite so lovely as an August storm. There were dozens of fires burning east and south of us when the storm hit, but this time there was enough rain to dampen the fires enough that the smoke cleared. Our daytime temperatures during the third week of the month were up 25 degrees F lower than average for this time of year. The lawns turned a rich green and the flowers brightened and recuperated from their summer struggle.

It takes much of the summer for the zinnias to bloom well

We began the month with a big treat for ourselves. We attended the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, about an hour south of us to see Macbeth.

photo from the OSF website

Neither of us had ever seen the play or remembered reading it, although friends said they read it in high school. Some lines are so familiar, the one that seemed the funniest to me was, "Out, out, damn Spot". I always thought that was about getting a dog out of the house.

The production was truly spectacular, but we both wished we had read more about the play before attending. Some of it was confusing and some was a bit overwhelming. I realized later that I was mentally confusing Macbeth with Hamlet. I told daughter Melody (the theater daughter)that at the time it was almost too much and I was so glad when it ended and yet when it was over and we thought about it we were both so glad that we went.

Afterward, we treated ourselves to Chinese food at a Medford restaurant that has good reviews. Another bust, with decent food that was fresh but without much flavor. It is easy to find "Asian" food and Thai food but any more it seems that Chinese food is passe and the few restaurants that remain in our area aren't that great.

Notice the empty tables. No one wanted to be outside in the heat on this Saturday afternoon

Our book club met at Schmidt Family Vineyard the next day with plans to sit outside. With temperatures in the triple digits, we didn't last long. The photo was taken by another group of women sitting nearby. We wanted to honor our member, Joan, who passed away unexpectedly. She had written a memoir. She was in her late 80s when she passed. Those of us who had read the memoir were shocked to discover the complexities of her life and all she accomplished. How often do we know older acquaintances without a clue of what they have lived through?  The book we chose a couple of months ago was "The Warm Hands of Ghosts".  We had mixed reactions to the book and the discussion was interesting.  We decided that it was time for a bit of change regarding how we choose our books.  I will let you know next time how that goes.

Just a few days later our friends Wes and Gayle dropped in for an overnight visit as they traveled from Tucson to Portland. It was wonderful seeing them again. We sometimes visit when we are near Tucson, but it has been three years since they were here. Gayle misses the wineries in our area and hasn't found anything in Arizona to compare with the wineries in the Applegate Valley. 

Gayle and Wes enjoying the view from the porch at Hummingbird Estate

Smoky skies limited the view of the mountains in the distance

After they arrived in the afternoon we took them to Hummingbird Estate for a bit of wine and snacks since they had never been to this particular winery. In spite of the smoky skies, they could see that the view would be lovely on a clear day.

Notice that Mattie has her own chair at the dinner table

Home again in time for dinner on the back deck with the four of us reminiscing about good times that we have shared over the years. Wes and Gayle were our neighbors in Rocky Point. One of our favorite memories is a time Mo and I invited them for hot dogs and we cooked them over a fire on a pitchfork.

Taken in 2011 in Rocky Point in the backyard

Wes and Gayle left on Thursday and on Friday morning I left Mo to take care of home and drove north to visit Daughter Melody for her birthday weekend. Her husband Robert was home Friday evening but had to leave early Saturday for a business trip.

Melody and Robert purchased a historic home built in 1908 in Brownsville, Oregon, a few years ago.  It is only a 3-hour drive from Grants Pass

Brownsville was the location for the movie "Stand By Me"

Robert and Melody started knitting and crocheting together last spring. Their den is overflowing with bins of yarn and ongoing projects. The next morning Melody and I relaxed with breakfast and coffee and the lovely prospect of an entire weekend of girl time.

Melody is developing a water-wise garden to replace the lawns in her front yard

We did the "flower walk", a tradition in our family that goes back a few decades. I love seeing my daughters enjoying their gardening hobbies and carrying on the tradition.

I think Kago was happy that I didn't bring Mattie along this time.

Melody took me downtown (Brownville is a tiny historic town) just a mile away to an amazing knit shop. It was a thrill to see a knit shop that was much like the few that I remember from my early days of knitting. Many of these small local knit shops are no longer open. Of course, I bought yarn, and with inspiration from Melody and Robert, I have started knitting again.

Daughter Melody in her happy place on the porch

Melody and I had lunch at a local Mexican restaurant and then spent the afternoon visiting another knit shop in Lebanon. Lebanon is about half an hour northeast of Brownsville. More yarn, more beautiful samples, and wonderful inspiration. No wonder the two of them have taken up the yarn arts. I so miss our little yarn shop in Grants Pass where I could take classes and participate in yarn groups.

Melody gets a big birthday hug from my grandson Xavier and my grandson Axel smiling in the background

The next day, Sunday, was time for a family gathering, with Melody's two sons and their spouses visiting from nearby Albany. They all had a day off at the same time. We took Melody to a wonderful noodle house in Eugene for her birthday celebration. It was so much fun. The kids shared the cost of the meal with me and we ordered so many dishes that I lost track. It was great fun and the food was incredibly delicious.

Left to right: Dom and Xavier, Axel and Py, Sue and Melody

Flower views from Melody's porch are wonderful

It was so much fun spending time with Melody and the kids, shopping, relaxing, eating, and sharing her birthday. I didn't make a cake this time, but I gave her a camera so she will have something to take to Paris this coming December for the big trip she and Robert have planned.

It was clear and gorgeous the entire time I was in Brownsville with blue skies and pleasant temperatures. While I was away the smoke also cleared in Grants Pass until the day I returned. By the time I drove down into our valley, the skies were thick with smoke from the many fires in the Cascades to the east and the north and from the fires in California to the south.

The Rogue Valley fills with smoke from fires around us in all directions

Mo and I originally planned to take the MoHo to Medicine Lake just across the Oregon border in California for a few days. With the heat and the smoke, we decided to skip our August camping trip. Instead, we drove over the pass to the east toward Rocky Point for a day of kayaking on our favorite canoe trail at Recreation Creek

The launch at Malone Spring on Recreation Creek

We left early in the morning to be on the water by 8:30 or so. We knew the skies would be smoky in the Klamath Basin but when we arrived were happy to discover that the area along the eastern front of the Cascade Mountains wasn't quite as bad as what we left behind in Grants Pass.

Wocus lily and tules (bullrush) hide much of the views at this time of year

It was wonderful to get back on the water in an area that we know and love. We paddled for a few hours and traveled a bit more than 5 miles. As Melody said to me, "Mom, you two could paddle there with your eyes closed", and she was almost right.

We didn't see another human on the entire trip.  With the heat of the day building up we decided to turn around before we made it all the way to Crystal Spring.

American white pelicans were skittish and avoided us

We have paddled often with rafts of white pelicans, sometimes getting very close, but this time they were skittish and stayed far enough away from us that I didn't get a very good photo.

The lack of wind allowed beautiful reflections on the water in spite of the smoky skies

Several beaver dams lined the waterway

We passed several beaver dams but didn't see any beaver in the water. We did see one otter, but she was also very skittish and kept diving beneath the wocus leaves before I could capture her cute little face.

I zoomed in on this wading bird at the base of the rushes

I thought it was a godwit, but looking more closely I think it may have been a willet. She also kept ducking away from the camera. I was glad I had the big camera instead of the phone so I could zoom in much better with the camera.

This little duck teased us for almost a mile, letting us get close and then skittering away to the next bend in the river. Even with a zoomed-in lens I still am not good enough at duck identification to name it.

To someone who knows ducks, the black beak should be a dead giveaway

We continued upstream for some time longer, enjoying the complete and utter silence of the morning. Even though we live in a somewhat quiet rural area in Grants Pass, there is nothing as quiet as Recreation Creek on a summer morning.

The smoky skies somehow added to the mystical magic of the morning

As we approached the point where we decided to turn around, I was suddenly surprised by the loud sound of sandhill cranes taking to the air. Of course, I had just put the camera away, thinking I didn't need any more photos of reeds and water.

Then near the meadows that open up as the river widens we saw at least a dozen great egrets through the grass. I discovered that attempting to focus a camera lens on a bird from river level is very nearly impossible because the camera really wants to focus on the grass between me and the birds. Manual focus is not going to happen while I am trying to paddle, get the camera out, and take a picture.

impossible to focus on the egrets through the sedges lining the river

In the same meadow, we saw at least two dozen white-faced Ibis, once again through grass that made a photograph nearly impossible

There were more than 20 ibises in this field (yes I double checked the plural of "ibis")

But a photo that captured the day most perfectly was taken the moment the egrets and the ibis took off from the meadow in a rush of wings.

lift-off along Recreation Creek on a smoky day

This photo somehow evokes the feeling of the birds, the water, and the quiet on a mystical smoky day that a more perfect shot might not capture.

The clouds before the thunderstorm in mid-August taken from the porch at Sunset House

As we returned home that evening, the skies in Grants Pass had cleared. A fresh breeze associated with the incoming front had cleaned the valley air. Within three days the triple-digit temperatures gave way to highs in the 70's and cool nights.

The annual bed responded well to the rain and cooler temperatures

Notice the white bird bath with the squirrel on it in the photo above. Mo has been bugging me for years to let her paint it a fresh white.  I don't want it to be fresh white.  I want to keep the old English garden look full of old antique items. We had two full days of blessed, heavy, soaking rain that was such a relief from the heat and drought. The lawn and the flowers responded almost immediately. I cannot remember when we have had good rain in August since I have lived in Southern Oregon.  Who knows if it will ever happen again.

Mo and I spent the rest of the month enjoying cool mornings working in the yard and looking forward to fall.

Mo spent a lot of time on hands and knees under the shrubs doing this project

Mo built a simple irrigation system that could use the salty wastewater that is the by-product of our reverse-osmosis system. She hated seeing it running down the ditch along the road. It now drip-irrigates the huge photinia shrubs that line the front of the property. Photinia thrives in hot climates, and they are somewhat salt tolerant.

Painting the deck, doing half at a time, and moving everything back and forth

Also, during the latter part of August, we pressure-washed the decks. When the weather warmed up again, Mo stained them. The decks need staining every three years or so in this climate.  Even though we live in a hot climate, winter fogs cause black mold to form on the wood. 

Rasberry Parfait crepe myrtle is a late bloomer

Somehow the month was truly beautiful. It has been a long time since I thought that August could be so delightful.  

07-31-2024 Joyous July

 

Early morning light with clear blue skies

Sometimes the month of July can get a bit tiresome here in Southern Oregon, but nowhere near as tiresome as the Dog Days of August. I am creating this story in August, very nearly halfway through the month, and who knows, before I am finished writing today I might even talk about August a little bit. I never really know what I am going to write until I begin the actual process, so your guess is as good as mine as to what I will talk about today.

The summer annuals are finally recuperating from the late June heat

This summer has been surprising. We had the usual late June heat, which continued into the early part of July, but instead of day after day of unrelenting heat, we actually got a break now and then, and for most of the month we had no smoke. Despite fires burning to the south and to the east of our little home here in Grants Pass, the winds blew in a favorable direction and we were spared. At least until mid-month. But that part will come later in my story.

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows how much I love to celebrate holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving, St Paddy's Day, and all the others seem to trigger a deep need for me to do something, anything, to mark the changes on the calendar. Maybe just a flag or a small bit of decor, or as my daughter says Christmas, which often looks like the holiday threw up all over the house.

Fourth of July picnic in Northern Idaho in 1985

The Fourth of July has always been a favorite and I have no idea why. Maybe because of the celebrations I loved as a kid, with the huge church picnic at the Arcadia County Park, complete with a public "plunge" as we called it back then. We started with campfire biscuits for the church breakfast before daylight and ended with magnificent fireworks shows surrounded by the hot wires of spent sparklers littering all the blankets strewn across the landscape of the park.

Fourth of July hike in 1986

As my kids grew I tried to recreate that same wonder for them. My kids still roll their eyes at my three-legged sack races and silly games on the lawn I made them play when I would have holiday picnics at home. I always tried to make it to the fireworks, no matter where we lived, and in Northern Idaho during the years I lived there, the kids remember watching the fireworks in the pouring rain at Riverfront Park in Spokane, or on Tubbs Hill in Coeur D'Alene. It seemed to rain a lot on the Fourth back in those days of the early 80's.

Fourth of July picnic at Whitehorse Park by the Rogue River near Grants Pass in 2019

I still try to do the Fourth, and the only tradition that manages to continue no matter what is "mom's potato salad". In the past few years, we have celebrated at the house in Rocky Point until we left in 2015, and then with fireworks with the kids in the parking lot at Mo's apartments where we lived during our transition to this current life in Grants Pass.

Fourth of July at Lake of the Woods in 2015

We spent one Fourth at Lake of the Woods, with fireworks, and another Fourth or two at Daughter Melody's house in Brownsville with fireworks in the park sponsored by the local fire department. Another year Mo and I spent the day hiking here in the nearby Cathedral Hills and topped off the day with fireworks in the local Reinhart Park in Grants Pass.

Last year Mo and skipped the Fourth in favor of our cruise on Oceania to the British Isles. Didn't miss the fireworks in the least.

We thought about going north to Melody's once again this year, but the combination of unrelenting heat in late June into early July was daunting. We thought about going to the local park for a picnic and bocci ball with the family, but again the thought of being outdoors in that heat was daunting. Instead, I told the family that I would be skipping the usual celebration this year and would be staying home, indoors, with air conditioning.

Melody and Robert thought that was a great idea since they have friends near their home who throw a huge Fourth of July party yearly. Sometimes they skipped it to be with family but this year they were happy to attend. After a bit of conversation about the non-plans for the holiday, the two of them asked if they could come south for the weekend after the holiday. The only requirement was that I make potato salad.

The mom who raised me put radishes in her potato salad so I do too

I was absolutely up for a belated holiday and some real potato salad. We still thought that the four of us in addition to Deborah and Matthew might skip out to the beautiful Whitehorse Park along the Rogue River where we spent the day a few years ago.

First supper of the weekend

Instead, the temperatures rose quickly to a high of 116 degrees and we were all extremely grateful for a cool, air-conditioned home where we could spend the day visiting, eating, knitting together, and watching movies. Once again, the day was as sweet as could be under the circumstances, and we had great fun bringing up memories of all the different years we have spent together on July Fourth.

The last supper of the late Fourth weekend

Robert has taught himself to knit via YouTube

Puzzles are great for hot summer days

When the Fourth was over, Mo and I spent mornings out in the yard before the heat became too much to bear and we retreated indoors to other pursuits. Puzzles are great entertainment when it is too hot to do anything else.

Even by 9 am the lines are growing at the popular sites at the market

I spent one morning visiting the local Farmer's Market but it was already pretty darn hot by 9:30 when I left. Tomatoes are not yet ready in this area and the blackberries have yet to appear for a reasonable price. I needed to get at least a big flat of berries because my homemade blackberry/slightly strawberry jam was gone. We used the last jar at breakfast early in the month.

The drinks were almost as good as the breakfast

I called Deborah and arranged for the two of us to go to the market together on another weekend, but the blackberries weren't yet ready even then. But Deb and I had a good time shopping after our yummy breakfast at Lulu's, with street tables and the best eggs Benedict in town.

Mo and I spent one morning driving out to the Applegate area to Pennington Farms so I could get the berries without having to try to track them down at the market. Nice that the flat of berries was ten dollars less than they were at the market and oh so sweet. I spent another hot day making jam to the delight of the cool air conditioning as the heat built outside.

The ancient dwarf Gravenstein apple tree in the lower pasture

On another day Mo picked a big bucket of apples and peeled and cored them so it was imperative that I make applesauce. The Gravenstein apples make the best applesauce ever and we treasure our little tree, old and bent as she may be.

Our little color spot made it through the windstorm

Later in the month, Mo came in with another bucket of apples and peeled and cored them so I once again had to make something. We had plenty of sauce and so this time around I made a truly yummy apple pie/galette sort of thing. A galette is like a French pastry with the crust wrapped up around the apple filling and folded. However, it can often leak and create an oven mess. A pie is more work with two crusts and I decided to make the galette in a pie pan and it was close to perfect. And no, I didn't manage to get a photo of that spectacular-looking pie.

Here I am talking about August, even though I didn't intend to. I made the pie in early August to share with our friends Wes and Gayle who were visiting from Tucson. I will write about their visit in the next post about August. Since Gayle is such a great cook and always cooks something spectacular for us, I decided a simple apple pie wasn't enough to serve them for dessert. I decided to try a caramel whiskey cream sauce for the pie which required caramelizing sugar until it bubbled fiercely. That was an experience but the sauce came out so good I will never again buy something in a jar. And yes, Janna, one of the few I can count on one hand who still reads my blog, might have to ask for that recipe if she hasn't already tried it.

But back to more of July.

no rain for us from this thunderstorm

The month progressed with more heat and a bit of a windstorm that blew through. I think we got exactly 5 drops of rain, but the thunder and lightning were just enough to ignite dozens of wildfires throughout the Cascades in addition to the huge Park fire northeast of Chico in California already burning.

The smoke was clearing when I got this photo

Right on time, on July 17th, the smoke rolled into Grants Pass and once again our skies were brown and the sun was red. The difference this year is that the smoke and poor air quality seem to dissipate every now and then and we can actually get a few blessedly gorgeous sunny days.

A few months ago Mo's brother called and asked us if we wanted to join them for a camping trip to their favorite beach park at Nehalem Bay in late July. Even though we are hesitant to leave during irrigation season, we agreed that it would be good to spend as much time as possible with family.

Site 55 in the D loop was nicely private

We departed for our 5 days on the Oregon Coast on the morning of July 22nd. Most of the time when we travel to the coast we don't go very far north. Nehalem Bay, however, is a 7-hour drive for us driving the MoHo so it makes for a bit of a long day.

Brother Don, SIL Nancy, Mo, and Mattie chatting by the campfire

Unlike our last family trip in June, this time we agreed that each family would make their own meals and we could eat at a shared table for dinners. I brought a pork loin which served us for two full meals done on the BBQ one night and in a stir fry on another night. The family agreed to a steak night with each of us bringing our own steaks and cooking them at Don and Wynn's campsite.

Mo, Mattie, and I enjoyed a walk to Nehalem Bay after supper

Our campsites weren't adjacent to each other since Dan made the reservations a bit late in the season. Sometimes it is terribly difficult to get reservations on the Oregon coast without doing them a year in advance, so we were lucky to get 4 sites for all the families.

This time, in addition to Dan and Chere, and Don and Wynn, Mo's brothers and their wives from Beaver Creek and Spokane respectively, we were joined by Nancy (wife of Mo's brother Roger who passed a few years ago) and her daughter's husband's mother and father and sister from the Tri-Cities area. Extended family this time around.

Nice paved walkway to the bay made it easy for me

After settling in that first night, we had a round table discussion about our plans for the next morning which included paddling somewhere in the kayaks. Nehalem Bay is fed by several arms of the Nehalem River, but they are all affected by tides and we had to be sure that we kayaked with the tide and not against it.

Launching at the ramp in Nehalem Bay at low tide

The tide was lowest at 8:30 AM on Tuesday so made sure we were on the water as soon after that as possible. The launch was a good one for me, with a smooth surface that I could navigate easily, and Mo and I launched without incident. Dan and Chere launched their inflatable and Jennifer (Nancy's daughter's sister-in-law) and Nancy took Don's two-person inflatable while Don kayaked in the beautiful wooden boat he built himself.

We spent about three hours on the water heading toward the ocean and returning to our launch site. We didn't see a lot of wildlife, but watching the horses on the beach from the stables at the state park was fun.

Dan and Chere

Nancy and Jennifer

Don and his beautiful wooden kayak

horses on the beach were great to watch

Mo and Mattie kayaking Nehalem Bay

At supper that evening we all decided that it would be wise to take a kayak break the next day and that each family could do their own thing before we met for supper. Mo and I chose to spend our time walking on the beach early in the day before the winds started up.

Up the sandy trail to the beach

Of course, Mattie was in sandy beach heaven. Mo and I love camping at Harris Beach on the Southern Oregon Coast at Brookings where there are many rocks and sea stacks to navigate. Although there aren't a lot of rocks at Nehalem Beach, there are dunes between the campground and the beach. Walking the beach is delightful, but climbing the dunes is hard for the best of us and I am certainly not the best! My legs were toast by the end of our day.

The beach wasn't windy on this day which made for a warm and wonderful walk

Always fun when Mattie can play off-leash with a friendly playmate

In the afternoon that day Mo and I did a bit of back-country driving to attempt to track down the boat launches that were located on the various drainages feeding into the bay. Despite the detailed maps Dan found online, most of the launches were mud holes at low tide or were down steep banks that we couldn't possibly navigate. Dan and Don drove around to other sites as well and came to the same conclusion.

The family skipped kayaking on Thursday and once again did our own thing with Mattie as the brothers and their wives did their own thing as well. Mo and I chose to drive to the day-use area to access the beach, thinking that the dunes might be less daunting from that location. Instead, the trail was even steeper and softer and by the time we got back that morning I was completely wiped out and had to rest enough so that I could still walk well enough to join the family for a shared supper at a local eatery in Manzanita near the campground.

Another view from the north of Nehalem Beach that I took on our first beach walk

Looking back, I realized that I didn't take a single photo of our day at the beach. I think I was tired of packing the camera and was definitely not into taking more family photos with the phone of people eating again. Made me laugh when I looked back at this attempting to add a photo or two to this part of the story!

Mo's brother Dan

Dan's wife Chere is always so much fun to be around

Family having supper together. The guy on the right is Rick

Mo's sister-in-law Nancy with Mo at the family supper

A favorite photo of Mo's brother Don and his wife Wynn

Friday morning we were awakened by a bit of scary news. Don's wife Wynn had a medical emergency, and she and Don ended up spending the night in the hospital at Seaside, 23 miles north, where the nearest emergency room was located. They arrived back in camp early in the morning, but Wynn definitely wanted to get on the road and get back to Spokane as soon as possible. Dan and Chere and Don and Wynn departed the campground by 8am and Mo and I expected to make a leisurely departure before 9.

Everything was going smoothly and on time until I attempted to retract the HWH semi-automatic levelers. Nada. Nothing worked. No matter how I tried the levelers would not respond. We were supposed to be out of the campground by noon but had no clue what to do. I started calling mobile RV repair services, but one was out of town, another was too fully booked to even consider coming to us at the park, and finally, one of the mobile services took pity on us and suggested we call HWH directly and provided us with a phone number that isn't easily obtained.

Rick Rusher

The park ranger came around to see if they could help, but they weren't allowed to do any of that kind of work on our rig. They did say that they would figure out a way to tell the people coming into our site that they would have to go to another available site.

There was no way that Mo could do what was needed because the bolts were much too tight to loosen. As luck would have it, Nancy's in-laws hadn't left yet and Rick (Nancy's daughter's father-in-law) said he would make an attempt to help. I finally got on the phone with HWH and Rick spent almost three hours with them attempting to get the levelers to retract. The final solution was for him to undo each of the four hoses that released a bit of the hydraulic fluid to release the pressure and allow the jacks to retract. With the jacks finally up we were able to leave the park before our required departure hour.

Mo and I were very happy when we pulled out of that campground just before noon.

We were mentally and physically exhausted by the time we actually got on the road and still had almost 8 hours of driving ahead of us. As we got closer to Grants Pass it was obvious that smoky skies were filling the valley. We pulled into the driveway just before dark, two very tired and worn-out travelers.

Daughter Deborah kept the water system working well while we were away

As always, we spent the next two days after we returned from the trip unpacking and cleaning up the MoHo before settling into our late summer routine of watering, trimming, mowing, and doing laundry. I baked some cookies and brownies to send to Rick as a simple thank you for all his help with the levelers. We would have been seriously stranded without his help, with all the mobile guys quoting days to weeks before they could get to us.

The last week of July was truly beautiful with temperatures moderating into the high 90's each afternoon with cool nights and beautiful mornings. We had several days with no smoke that made me remember with delight what summer can bring.

We have Anna's hummingbirds and rufous hummingbirds

We ordered a 2000-gallon load of water to be delivered to our cisterns which gave us a bit of reprieve from the summertime issue of our well and the flowers all said thank you. I spent time in a chair outside simply watching the sky and the leaves on the big trees while Mo raked the lower pasture cleaning up the debris from the windstorm.

Morning light from the lower part of the pasture

I took photos of birds and leaves and trees and even got a good shot of the almost full moon.

Summer is a gift that I often tend to dismiss. I realize that I may only have a dozen or fewer summers in my lifetime so I had better enjoy each and every one.

Summer morning after Mo raked the pasture

One last shot of our gorgeous clear July skies that are such a treasure