Summertime

It's summer in Missouri, hot and dry with occasional thundering cloudbursts. All last week the weatherman promised rain, but it didn't happen.


When it's 90+ degrees outside, the dogs don't want to move around much. When I can coax them out they find ways to stay cool. Morgan finds a place under a tree to enjoy a stick.


Bailey takes a stroll in the shade with her favorite toy, her stuffed monkey. She carries it everywhere with her. Usually I don't allow stuffies outdoors, but Bailey always brings hers back inside with her.


Yesterday afternoon the sky got dark and the clouds opened up. It rained so hard that for a few minutes we couldn't see the house across the street. The wildflowers in the yard appreciated the cool rain and presented us with these this morning.


I like keeping a little piece of the yard wild. It looks like a tiny meadow with lots of different flowers planted by the birds.


Nature's colors look so pretty together.


In Pennsylvania we lived next door to a young lady who was four years old. She and I would take walks down a farm road and she would point out the flowers to me. These she called 'Queens and Lace'.


When my little friend saw these growing along the road she told me they were 'Tiggey Liggies'. I liked her names for them and always think of them that way.


It seems early, but the farmers have been cutting hay already. The fields around our place have these hay rolls standing in the fields waiting to be carted away.


They go on and on. It should be good eating and nesting this winter for the livestock.


The Fleur-de-Lis is on my family coat of arms and I'm quite fond of it. I have a necklace and bracelet with the symbol. Last night I took the dogs out for their last call around 11 PM. The rain had stopped and it was slightly cooler than it has been. When I opened the back door out of the garage, look what I saw.


This fellow was resting on the door staying out of the rain dripping from the trees. I raced for my camera, but he was quite content to sit there and was still there when I took the dogs back inside and turned off the lights. He's a Clymene Moth aka the Fleur-de-Lis Moth.

Now just in case some of you are also suffering from temperatures in the 90s and above, I thought I'd show you this photo taken by my cousin.


The house on the right is hers and this is the street where I lived when I was in highschool. We usually had winters like this, though in recent years they've been milder. This was taken in February of 2007. I remember walking to school thru snow tunnels just like this and sometimes higher. Feel cooler now?