Aaaaand, more rain and thunderstorms for the next 4 days. At least we were granted two days with sunny skies. I managed to get all the mowing done in time for the whole thing to start over again. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, two days to mow and weed, rain, rain, rain, rain. Ad nauseum.
This little guy was having breakfast this morning. He was out there for about an hour. Henry was out there as well, but for less time, because Henry gets scared easily and runs back inside his home.
I worked out on the porch yesterday, potting a few plants that I’d purchased about a week ago, cleaning the former kitchen island and a table,, watering the plants. I swept the porch. Then I moseyed on down to the front yard to take some photos of the wildflowers that are popping up everywhere.
They’re all growing down near the road – and elsewhere on the property. Queen Anne’s Lace always pops up down near the mailbox. Fleabane is everywhere. Purple Loosestrife only pops up near the culvert and in the wettest edge of the Secret Garden. For those of you who are about to say it’s invasive, don’t worry. We’ve been here for almost 13 years and it’s not invasive on this property. I think it’s beautiful.
I’m not sure what is on the docket for today except recycling and grocery shopping.
How exciting!
(I kid.)
It’s sort of a gray day and the rain is expected to start any minute and gray days, for the most part, don’t do a lot to lift my mood. I find that to be truer than ever the older I get. I used to think that Don was way too influenced by whether it was sunny or gray and rainy. But the truth is, I’m the same way.
Ah, well. I suspect there are a lot more people out there like us.
And the state of our country doesn’t help.
Happy Wednesday.
glad there was a window of time where you could do those things that were starting to bug you … mowing and weeding … and also take more pretty photos. that rabbit is so sweet. i love that you are tuned in to the animals, knowing (for example) that henry is easily frightened and that you are respectful of and care about them. :)
count me as someone also influenced by the weather … though maybe in a way that’s opposite of most … it’s not just humidity or high heat; the glaring sunshine sometimes is too much for me. i love overcast days and rainstorms … as long as no one gets hurt, of course, and especially when i am at home and can plunk down by a window and enjoy them.
hope you get the errands done quickly and can enjoy the rest of the day doing whatever you want. are you reading anything you’d like to recommend?
kathy in iowa
I’m rereading A Gentleman in Moscow.
a book good enough to re-read is sure a wonderful thing … and a reminder to me to set aside time to read “a gentleman in moscow” for the first time!
thanks.
kathy in iowa
xo
I feel you. Gray rainy days are just depressing. I raised a kid who has always loved those kind of days (“Mom, my favorite color sky is gray,” he told me when in middle school). Not me. But at least we have warm rainy days right now. The absolute worst IMO are those cold wet fall days when the driving rain strips trees of all their beautiful leaves. I’m a wildflowers kinda gal too and just let them grow. Plus, since there’s lot of sunflower seeds in the bird feeders, we get the added benefit of random sunflowers which are simply stunning.
Stay dry.
Oh, yes those fall rainy days are depressing!
It rained yesterday and is still raining today. I am feeling a bit blue as I have found that the weather changes my moods also. More reading today and laundry, always laundry. How can one person always have laundry to do?
I know! Especially, for me, when I’m doing work outside. I dirty a lot of jeans and t-shirts!
The state of our country is definitely a BIG DOWNER!!
Putting it mildly!
I agree with what you say about purple loosestrife. We have some in our yard and I’m careful to NOT show it in any of my FB photos for fear of raising the ire of my friends. It’s never enlarged a bit and I’ve never had to weed it out anywhere in the yard or surrounding area.
I understand. The purple loosestrife police come out in droves! I’ve never needed to weed it at all. That’s why I wrote that. I didn’t want another friendly lecture about it!
I am happy to hear you got all your mowing done. Good news….after all this rain, you get to do it all over again….I jest! And, I’m sure it’s putting a damper on Don’s ventures, too.
The wildflowers are lovely. My neighbor’s whole backyard is mostly wildflowers…while her front yard is groomed. Quite the difference, but a great habitat for all the creatures that live nearby.
Enjoy the rain…it’s either feast or famine lately! ;)
Yes. Don can’t get out there and take photos today.
Feast or famine to be sure!
I am definitely one who is affected by the weather as well. We are in a terrible drought along with the typical horrendous temps and the humidity comes and goes.
It’s so horrible to me how global warming is changing our weather everywhere. Even here in south Texas where it is almost always HOT we are seeing changes. The droughts are so much worse than they ever were before and I know this is not normal. The heat we are seeing all over this country in places that never received those temps before is just terrifying to me.
I just don’t understand why it’s so hard for SO many people to see and understand that global warming is indeed a real thing! The terrible storms and wildfires all over this planet. All of the loss of lives because of it. And there’s so many things we can do to slow this process. Why wouldn’t we all want to save this beautiful planet we’ve been given?! Okay, I’ll get off my box now…..sorry.
I hope that you guys get a break from the rain soon. I hope that we get rain very soon. Have a most lovely day.
It has to do with big business, corporations who don’t want to be curbed in their excesses, crazy religious zealots who, for a number of reasons, won’t accept facts. And more. I have NO PATIENCE anymore for people like that or for Cult45. They are not welcome in my home or my life or this blog. Thanks, Belinda.
Totally agree! I just feel that the average Americans like us should believe more in global warming. Those are the ones that frustrate and enrage me. And girl do not get me going on those crazy religious zealots! Remember I was raised in the South. I know all about those people unfortunately. Sad how ignorance prevails.
xo
My mood is blue today, too. (It’s an epidemic!) The heat and humidity is really getting to me. The humidity is so thick and cloying, it feels as if you could cut it with a knife. We’ve hardly been cooling down at night. I haven’t slept with a blanket or sheet over me for weeks.
I did a stupid thing and didn’t renew my driver’s license in time, so I have clipped wings until the motor vehicle department mails me my new license. They are SO SLOW. I wasn’t able to renew online because of an address change problem. Being unable to get out and drive, be dependent upon my VERY busy husband who works out of town, is causing me a lot of frustration. I haven’t been able to drive the car for two solid weeks! I don’t dare, of course, with an expired license.
And, yes, when I read about the detained (‘immigrant’) children yesterday being given drugs against their will, I burst into tears. The headlines of what’s going on in our country every day are enough to put any of us in a state of such negativity; so many bad emotions of fear, uncertainty, anger, etc. And it’s been this way for the past couple of years to where we can’t feel secure, have to try to maintain vigilance balanced with sanity; it’s so wearing to the mind and soul. It’s this incredulity of ‘how can this be happening’, repeated over and over and over again.
Then, on top of everything else, my cousin (on the other side of the States from me) notified me last night that she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer; being tested for the gene to know how best to proceed. Her mother got it at age 38 and my cousin is only age 55; she still has two children in college. Newly-divorced, when I wish she had the support of her husband, who I happen to like a whole lot. He wants to ‘be there’ for her, but she’s keeping him at arm’s length when I feel she should let him ‘in’; they were together a long, long time (married young). If I ever felt like I had a little sister, she’s it. I of course have to remain positive and draw on all aspects of my faith but this has shaken me to my bones. She’s amazingly resilient and really intelligent; she has the opportunity of very good medical care. But how can I not worry. How can I not question; why her. Why anybody. She takes such good care of herself; I can remember, gosh, 30 years ago, how she’d stand a long time at the stovetop, cooking steel-cut oats. She exercises. Is slim. Meditates. She doesn’t have to take any medications. She’s so otherwise healthy but this, of course, will all be in her favor as she faces surgery.
So, I just hugged my dog til she finally had to get up, have a good shake over it, giving me the look of “That’s enough for now, Ma!” I’m so grateful I have central air conditioning when too many people here do not. I’ll bury myself in bill-paying today and try to distract myself indoors.
And I knew I could visit your blog and be treated with something beautiful to look at – – oh, such sweet wildflowers, and you know their names! Anytime I see a bunny, I always get a smile. So, thanks for that today, Claudia.
I’ll trade you some sun for rain! If it were the colder months, I’d say just turn on a lot of lights inside to dispel the gray outside. But if you’re like me, when it’s still so hot outside, I don’t want any lights on inside at all if I can help it.
Yes, and a young girl died in one of those camps, from a combination of neglect and illness.
They are death camps.
I didn’t know that. I’d had to stop reading; I couldn’t take another word. We’re living in a nightmare we can’t get out of. Years from now, history will look back on this and we’ll be appalled we lived in it, that it was happening in real time, just like when my mom and my dad were in their teens and horrible things were happening in Nazi Germany overseas to young people their own age. While Mom was working at Woolworth’s for her summer job between school years, another girl across an ocean was imprisoned and dying just because she was a Jew. But this isn’t across the ocean; it’s right here in the U.S., in 2018. How can this be us? It feels like we’re tumbling into a dark pit. We’re supposed to be a humane nation. Children, anywhere from anyplace, need to be shielded from harm, cherished in protective arms; reassured, comforted. They’re just little raw beings trying to grow, so vulnerable, so needing adults to do right by them. How can they ever recover from this kind of stress? It’s at our deepest core, at least how I was raised, to honor and be utterly kind to the elderly, the mentally-challenged and physically-handicapped (handicapable); to animals; to children.
This song has been recorded by more than one group or person; the lyrics are meaningful:
Bless the beasts and the children,
For in this world they have no voice,
They have no choice.
Bless the beasts and the children,
For the world can never be,
The world they see.
Bless the beasts and the children;
Give them shelter from a storm;
Keep them safe;
Keep them warm.
Light their way
When the darkness surrounds them;
Give them love, let it shine all around them.
Songwriters: Barry De Vorzon / Perry L Botkin
xo
We have been having nearly a week of upper 70’s and low 80’s and 50’s overnight, so it has been lovely. Especially after weeks of the 90+ temps we had. Although, this weekend the heat and humidity is supposed to return, but I am so glad we have had this reprieve. I agree that weather does definitely affect my mood.
I have been reading like I have never read before. Returned 5 books this morning that I read in the past 8 days, and then picked up 6 more I had reserved and had come in. I finished a WWII book this morning and it brought to mind too many of the current similarities to that regime. I am still so very angry, but in addition I am getting quite scared now. Watching how they can simply make up a lie and in a matter of days get the masses to believe them in a cult like movement is absolutely frightening. No one seems to have an answer when they do that, and his “numbers” go up. So I keep reading. I can’t watch the news, so reading is my drug of choice, Self preservation. And just knowing how it is affecting me is quite disturbing.
I hope the rain doesn’t deter you & Don from having an otherwise good day. Remember, at least it isn’t snow that you will have to shovel!
Having trouble reading again. I’m easily distracted and now that Don is home, I’m even more easily distracted. I’m going to make myself read this afternoon. Something other than Twitter and the news.
It’s very humid here again. It came with the heavy rains that hit today.
Your Purple Loosestrife is pretty…my White Gooseneck Loosestrife is a monster but a pretty monster…lol…Enjoy yours…I have never seen the purple here…I do have all the other wildflowers you have pictured here and love them all…what is to hate?…free flowers and I don’t have to plant them!…I am appalled and ashamed at what has been done to these precious children…somebody please help us…please make this nightmare we are in stop!!!😢
Free and beautiful flowers!
I am praying every day that this nightmare ends sooner rather than later.
We had a little rain this morning,but the sun came out most of the afternoon.
Marilyn
It’s incredibly humid here, Marilyn!
you inspire me, blessings!
Thank you!