It's been SOOO hot lately

Okay... your turn: "How hot has it been?"

It's been sooo hot that this robin just sat in the birdbath with its mouth hanging open for about 5 minutes the other day.

Then it took a dive:

Ahhhh... that felt good!

More!!

Then it was joined by another hot bird:

Let's see who can splash the most!

Okay, let's see who can do the best dive!

I think we have our winner below:

They had great fun splashing and kept at it for a long time. The next day there were even three robins in at a time!

It's been sooo HOT and sooo HUMID, one would think we lived in southern Florida, Annie Dee! Sure glad I don't, though... certainly not my kind of weather, and hopefully it will end soon.

Just pretty

This is a rose from my mini rose bush:

In contrast, a weed... a thistle, in fact:

But both can be pretty, each in its own right!

Which do you like best?

Just funny

This is the scene I saw on the deck railing when I first got up yesterday morning:

It's Mama and her two kittens. They'd been sleeping like that! I wonder how long.

Mama saw me through the window right away. I guess she's a light sleeper. The kittens started waking up, but were still pretty lazy.

Surely there are better places than that to sleep, right?!

Garden produce

I thought I'd give you a peek at my garden, although I took these photos over a week ago, and with the heat we've been having, things have really matured fast, so it doesn't quite look like this anymore. :)

The tomatoes had just started ripening nicely:

Several weeks of dry weather followed by the big rain we got, though, caused a lot of them to crack, even while green:

They're ripening really fast now, and I've picked a lot of them.

Here are the whole plants, over 6 feet tall in their super-duper tomato cages. All the moisture we had in the early part of the summer, however, caused a rather big leaf spot problem, as you can see at the bottoms of the plants, and it's gotten considerably worse in the last week:

My cantaloupe/muskmelons have done well, considering I only have 2 plants. There are about a dozen of them out there. We've already started eating this one... it got huge, and it's yummy!

My one butternut squash plant has produced well, too:

I have tons of green bell peppers from my 4 plants. Two of them are supposed to produce red peppers. I've forgotten which ones are which, so I'll just have to wait and see! However, if I wait long enough, they'll all turn red, anyway.

With the wet spring we had, I think every carrot seed grew. I'll have an abundant crop there! The onions have bent over and started to dry down:

Here's something in the wildflower bed that I didn't plant!

It's a Rainbow! I usually find her out there in the mornings. She still hides out from the other cats a lot. :(

She's bigger than a muskmelon. :)

Moonshine

There was a full moon last week. Did you notice? I decided to see what kind of pics I could get with my "new" camera. It definitely did a better job than my old one, but it was still challenging to get the exposure just right. Here are some of my shots.

Too much exposure... it really was much darker out than this:

Better, but not enough exposure:

This is my best shot, although there really was no reddish haze around the moon:

Then I zoomed in farther:

Looks good, but the "face" was missing from the moon. I never could get that. I guess I need a better lens of some sort.

I didn't use my tripod. For the above pics, I held the camera on the deck railing, which stabilized it pretty well. Below are a couple of shots I took just holding it in my hands. It doesn't take much movement to make the picture "off", considering the slow shutter speed:

I'm not sure what happened with this next one, but it's interesting! Ha! I must've moved the camera before the shutter was closed:

So much for my experimenting in the moonshine. :)

Crop update

I had another request for current corn photos. This is what the corn here looked like on Wednesday:

Keep in mind that this is not one of our better cornfields, at least not this area of it. But it's close to our yard, so that's why I took the pictures here. It's producing nice ears, though:

But some of the corn is pretty short, to say the least. This is right next to the corn above:

Heehee... not too great, huh? It's because the ground is pretty shallow there, I think because that's where our old house got buried after we built the new one 35 years ago. With the dry conditions we had for a few weeks this summer, the corn just quit growing and started drying up. Here's another look at just how short it is:

But the recent big rain perked it up, and some of that little stuff is still producing ears!

Now if you want to see a really nice-looking crop, check out these soybeans!

The whole field is tall and beautiful!

Barring any unforeseen nasty weather tricks, we should have a bountiful crop once again!

A new look!

This is the little girl Mommy brought to my house yesterday! I think it's Courtney, but doesn't she look different?! She's sporting a brand new all-ready-for-school haircut! 

I absolutely love it!

I love that adorable little nose, too. Well, and everything else about her. :) I love her generosity, too... she donated her hair to Locks of Love! Way to go, Courtney!

Yep, ready for school, but it doesn't start for her until September 3rd, so we still have a full day together next week before the after-school days start. We'll see what kind of adventure we can have next week.

Just pretty

I'll give you a break from kittens/cats today. :)

These are my plains coreopsis flowers from my wildflower bed (which is kind of a mess this year, but these are blooming profusely). I know, you've seen them before, but not photos taken with this camera, which I think makes them look even better. :) Anyway, I think they're just lovely for photographing. Enjoy!

Okay... more cats! - Part 2

Gotta say... I love having the birdbath on the deck railing. It provides me with so many photo opps... be it birds... or other creatures!

Soooo... yesterday you saw Mama's orange-and-white kitten. Sunday afternoon, his sibling (sex as yet undetermined, but I'll refer to it as "he", because that's my guess) appeared for a drink. Hmm... he sure looks like a lot of other cats around here, doesn't he? *sigh*

He had his drink, but he seemed very wary. He kept kind of ducking from something!

Then he hopped down to Mama and his ever-playful brother:

Suddenly both he and Mama were watching something in the sky. They looked one way...

... then the other way:

I finally saw that there was a big hawk flying back and forth above them. Now wouldn't that have made for an exciting... albeit sad... photo, if the hawk had swooped down and snatched that little black-and-white guy while I was taking a pic of him by the birdbath?! But they all headed safely under the deck for a while, and the hawk flew away.

Mama takes very good care of her babies. These two seem to be very healthy and not lacking for food. I did see her with a big fat mouse in her mouth calling to them on Saturday. She's the best mother cat and hunter ever.

Okay... more cats! - Part 1

You asked for it... well, a couple of you did, anyway. The rest of you are probably thinking: "Oh, no... more cats!" (That thought crosses my mind at times, too. It seems to be overflowing with cats around here.)

Several weeks ago, I showed you Mama's kittens. I've rarely seen them since. She's raised them in the wild, and believe me, they're wild! As soon as they see me coming, they disappear. I had only seen the black-and-white one once since we got back from Cincinnati.

However, on Saturday, I glanced out the window at the birdbath, and lo and behold, there was the orange-and-white one having a drink! I quickly grabbed the camera, but by the time I got it turned on and attempted to focus, the kitten had already taken off for across the driveway, following Mama. Bummer. This is the shot I got:

But later, much to my surprise, he was back! Of course I was still inside the house, or I'd have never gotten this shot. He appears to be looking right at me, but I don't think he was really seeing me or he wouldn't have stayed.

He just went about his business of playing:

He seemed to be in a very playful mood!

The above pic is how I discovered he was a tom, once I got it into the computer. ;)

He rolled around for a while, and then he went back to Mama:

There's more to the story. Come back tomorrow if you can tolerate it. (I have to stretch this out so I don't run out of photos again. ;) )