Passive cooling and a beautiful jungle

It's getting truly hot. We are heading into the 90s, which means we have to be vigilant in the passive cooling efforts. What's passive cooling? Or maybe you already know what it is! But just in case you don't, passive cooling involves a few things that you can do in the hottest part of the year to control your electric bill and also do a kindness to the environment. 

Big note here: we live in a region where it still gets in the low and mid 60s at night and early mornings, even during the hottest months. We are very blessed in that regard. Depending on where you live, what we do may not work for you, particularly if you live in or near the dessert or a big, concrete city, or an area known for massive heat waves in the summer months. Safety first, always. Never do anything that could potentially cause heatstroke or heat-related deaths. But for us, we do the following:

• Turn the A/C off for at least five hours a day. I generally do this when I get up in the morning. The A/C goes off, windows go up, and fans are turned on. Takes about two minutes to do this and the savings are phenomenal.
• Use fans to move the cool air from outside to the inside. This really does work if you have at least one fan strategically located.
• On weekends, do the same for Bunny and the babies in their building. 
• Once it begins to get in the mid-70s outside, close all windows and doors. 
• Pull the blinds AND the curtains. I do have heat and light-blocking curtains in the living room and our side room, which are the two rooms that have the most light coming through at certain times of the day. I got mine years ago at a discount store, and they work really well. They wash up nicely, and if you line-dry them, they will last for years. I think I paid $15 per pair, so for $60 (there are four windows), we get several years of savings on the electric bill.
• By 10 a.m., we switch the A/C back on and set it to 74 degrees. We never go any lower UNLESS we are in a true heat wave. Then - and only then - do we turn the A/C down to 72 for one hour around 3 p.m. as we head into the hottest part of the day. It's amazing how much difference that makes in keeping the house cool the remainder of the day when we switch it back up to 74. This will only work, however, if your house is insulated well.
• We do not do run the dryer after 10 a.m. If we do laundry after 10 a.m., then we make sure it's a sunny day and we can line dry the items. Otherwise, laundry waits until the sun has gone down or is only done in the early mornings. This keeps the part of the house where the dryer is located from getting too warm and forcing the A/C to run.

That's it. It sounds like a lot, but it literally takes minutes to do these things and the savings on our electric bill is quite large. Think about it: if the A/C isn't running for 35 hours out of a week, then that's significant. If you're not running your dryer during the hottest parts of the day, then your A/C doesn't have to work nearly as hard. Plus, line drying is soooo much easier. 

The other thing: this passive cooling speaks of even better things to come. By that, I mean that, although we are in the warmest part of the year, Autumn hovers nearby. I love summer and will hate to see it go, but the silver lining is that several weeks are coming where A/C and heat aren't even used except on minimal occasions. I use these hot, summer days to watch my scary summer movies and look up Crocktober recipes and keep an eye on the pumpkin patch and corn. It's a nice transition period.

Pictures! Here we go, up first our giant zinnia patch. Be still my heart, I love this beyond words. I truly, truly do.

More zinnias alongside the garden. They're great for framing out vegetable gardens. They don't draw the wrong kind of bugs, and the pollinators that they lure will do wonders for your veggies like squash or any type of veg that has a bloom prior to the vegetable developing.

July generally looks like a jungle, plush and lovely and wild.

All right, class, what kind of flowers are these? That's right! Zinnias!

Look at my naughty, beautiful, big boy. I'm telling him it's time to go inside so that the birds can freely fly around to eat and take care of their babies. He is pointedly ignoring me. This guy is huge - almost 16 pounds - but he's completely passive. I had to go pick up the big chunk and carry him inside. He didn't put up a fuss, but he made me work to get him back inside! 

More gorgeous jungle! This is the view outside the kitchen window. It never, ever gets old.

Okay, next, let's observe the partial box of Peggy Ann glazed donuts in its natural habitat. Aren't they lovely, just lying there all glazed and gooey-looking? These were given to us Friday, a whole, beautiful dozen, super fresh and all sweet and yeasty smelling. Absolute heaven. These donuts eat like a meal, they've got real substance to them. We shared them with my folks, and we shared them with my mother-in-law this past weekend, as well. Gotta spread that goodness around. 

Time for specific garden pics. As previously promised, here is the corn/popcorn patch, and here is the messy herb garden. The popcorn has started tasseling, but it will stay on the stalk, untouched for at least eight more weeks. We've never grown this before, so I'm pretty jazzed to see how it turns out. Then, there's the herb garden. It's messy. Very, very messy, but I don't care. It gets this way in mid to later summer, but here's the thing: yesterday, it had monarchs coming and going like crazy. That's the point of the herb garden, it's for the pollinators. As long as they're happy with it, then it has turned out perfect.

The pumpkin patch has germinated, and by this time next week, the vining will have started, and the plants you see will have more than doubled in size. By mid-August, there will, most likely, not be any dirt visible and the pumpkin blooms will, hopefully, be on full display so that our pollinators can help get the ball rolling on the baby pumpkins. Pumpkin patches are the best fun to observe. I've never, ever gotten tired of this.

That's just about it. I did finally decide on my first Crocktober recipe, a corn casserole that is extremely old-school and will go great with a pot of chili. I've got to find three more, as I'd like to do one Crocktober a week during that particular month. Blessings to you on this last Tuesday in July. Where does the time go? I think our whole country is in a heat wave, so be careful out there, stay dehydrated, and don't overdo!

It's not too bad if there's a breeze

Yesterday and the day before were absolutely gorgeous, minus a sizable storm that rolled through Monday night. The temperatures were mild both days, and in July, that's a true gift. Summer shows up for real the next ten days, but it IS that time of year. If we have low humidity and there's a breeze, it's not too terrible, though. I always feel bad complaining about our temperatures when I see the temps out west. Each area of the United States has its beauty, and weather must be endured in all areas, I guess. Some parts it's heat, other parts it's winter that lasts for months on end. You take the good with the bad.

Summer temps get you ready for Autumn, though. Just about the time you think you cannot stand another hot day, you feel that first breeze that hints at cooler days to come. But in the meantime, the garden is beautiful and a daily gift to the senses. Look at that sunflower a couple pictures below. Isn't it gorgeous?! The nice thing about this particular type of sunflower is that it does not get too tall and grows like a bush. With the wind that we get in these parts of the country, huge, tall sunflowers on solo stalks do not fare well. You either have to plant stuff really thick or know that whatever type of flower you buy, it's gotta be able to withstand wind.

Zinnias are great in wind, as well. Zinnias bush out as they grow, and they also begin to grow together and support each other. We do plant them thickly because of the nature of wind out our way, but even a more thinned-out approach will eventually fill in nicely and create a summer-long cutting garden for you.

I'm going to go picture by picture for the sake of chronicling. Feel free to skip all of it and just enjoy the pictures. It's pretty tedious, but it will help me later. Side notes are thrown in, as well, lol.

Close-up of a California Giant Zinnia. Currently, the stems/bushes are nearly up to my waist and still growing. Stalks have thickened up and the entire large patch is pretty much filled in. 

Cutting sunflowers were planted along one edge of the giant zinnia patch. One pack of sunflowers has yielded about four or five plants, each of which have bushed out and have multiple sunflowers. Note to self: plant a couple rows of these next year, edging out the zinnia patch on three sides.

Close up of the sunflower. Wonder what it's like to be this beautiful? I mean, look at this. It's ridiculous. Only God could have come up with this.

A peek through the garden to the "bowling alley," a long and large strip of open space on our property that looks like you could put in a bowling lane. Makes a nice contrast in a yard that is overly-landscaped (that's a thing, for sure; simply means there are too many things that need constant upkeep).

What's this?! It's a baby Trudy! When you look like Trudy, you get whatever you want.

Part of the giant zinnia patch. I need to get some overhead shots of this. I can't get it all in one picture. This year, we extended it by a couple feet. I think next year that we may extend it another six feet to adjust for adding three sides of sunflowers.

Zoomed out shot to show that the sunflowers are on the edge of the giant zinnia patch. See how they've bushed out and have multiple blooms on the bush? Not too tall, either, which is great.

Do you see my spectacular monarch below? They are starting to show up! By August, they'll be off the charts/all over the place. You can always tell when I spot one of the boys in the garden. You can hear me yelling "NO NO NO NO NO! We do NOT eat our pollinators!" Soon after the yelling, you'll generally see me or my husband running out to the gardens to grab the culprit stalking the pollinators. I know, they're cats and that's what they do. But they're well-fed cats (fat), and they'll just have to find something else to do outside. My pollinators are off-limits.

Cucamelons! Looks like a miniature watermelon, doesn't it?! I love these. I eat them right off the vine. They taste like a cross between a cucumber and a melon. And yes, they really are as small as they look. They grow like a vine, so my dad has a wire trellis arranged for them to climb. These were planted last year and came back on their own. We'll see how many growing seasons they end up having from that one pack of seeds two years ago!

This is hosta gone wild. Isn't it gorgeous? These frame part of the front of the house. My dad worked on these to get them divided from other parts of the yard. It's amazing how they expand and fill in after just a year or two. 

Baby Higgins has spotted something across the property! She spends a lot of time up this tree when we have them outside. She's the best climber out of all the kitties and extremely confident in her footing. I do have tiny heart failures when she goes a bit high for my taste, but she always climbs down like an experienced black bear. It's both fascinating and unnerving to watch.

One other note on the garden - the tomatoes are taking forever to ripen. In years past, we've always had big plates of fresh tomatoes sliced with salt and pepper for our Fourth of July spread. This year, we've just not had much luck in having ripe tomatoes yet. We've gotten a few off the plants, but there must be a million green tomatoes in the garden. It's not just us, either. It seems to be a common occurrence for a lot of gardens this year. I'm not sure what to expect. Those tomatoes are either never going to ripen, or they're going to all ripen LITERALLY on the same day.

I need to share pictures of the corn patch and the pumpkin patch soon. Not a typical corn patch, for sure, as this year, my dad opted to grow popcorn! And, yes, I do mean popcorn, like the stuff that you eat during a movie! 

 That's the update, aka the mundane ramblings for record keeping. I'm off to fix myself grits with vegan sausage and a side of toast with peanut butter and strawberry jam. Cannot beat that for starting out the day! Happy hump day. Here's hoping we slide into the upcoming weekend with ease!

Blackberry syrup and is everyone except us loaded?

Strangest phenomenon, this large-ish issue in the United States where businesses are closing because they can't find employees who want to work, even though the hourly wage for many, many jobs is quite high now. People are just up and quitting their jobs because they can no longer work from home and were denied the request to continue doing so, following the requirement of the return to the office after pandemic directives lifted. I've seen this up happening up close on multiple occasions, and it boggles the mind.

If a person's job was not remote before and the requirement to return to the office was fair and equitable, then why the pushback? If it was okay to work at the office before, why isn't it now? The biggest kicker is that many of these people just up and quit with no job to go to. I have seen this firsthand, and I have to wonder "are they so loaded financially that they don't need the income or health insurance??" I do realize that there are people who left their jobs due to other circumstances, and that's understandable. But this overall phenomenon is hard for me to understand.

And the surge in home buying! Isn't it crazy??! I'm not sure what the future looks like for the people buying too much house just because the interest rates are good right now, but they certainly know how to justify living paycheck to paycheck, apparently. Are they counting on never having financial hardships? Or do they just figure that they'll declare bankruptcy if it gets too hard? Or that the government will continue to issue check after check and they're factoring that in? I don't get it. 

I'm not a financial expert, but, then again, are all the people going these routes of up and quitting a job or buying too much house financial experts? I'm watching the next five years very carefully. This is going to play out, I believe, to the detriment of a lot of people. I'm truly not a scaremonger or one of those people who think everything is a conspiracy. Those people can be exhausting, they really can. But I AM a realist. I have a feeling that the government will get tired of bailing out the people who have made unwise financial moves such as quitting their job without another one lined up or buying too much house. The result will be that the government will eventually begin seizing property. Those in power will get richer and richer. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't trust the situation at all. Something feels "off" about it.

Enough of that. Isn't this drink lovely? It's semi-homemade, ha ha. In the bottom is about three tablespoons of homemade blackberry syrup, made from our very own blackberry patch. Over top of that I have poured a Mountain Dew. That's it. It creates this gorgeous color, and the froth at the top just happens when you pour the Dew over top of the syrup. It is a wonderful summer flavor, the citrus of the Mountain Dew with the blackberries.

On Saturday mornings, I go through and clean the fridge and cabinets in an effort to salvage and use up any leftovers and to note what we already have so that I don't duplicate items at the store or over-buy.  Often the result is a casserole of some sort, like the one below, a lobster bisque casserole that has cornbread and squash from the garden, vildalia onions, an egg, some Dukes mayo and sour cream folded into it and topped with a really strong cheddar. I like cheese-topped casseroles to get slightly brown on top. I really do think the cheese tastes best at that stage. This tastes like the deep south, comfort food for sure.

My baby girl, Georgie, has the sweetest ears. She's my tiniest kitty at barely nine pounds, and she is my geriatric baby, as well. I never tire of looking at her with her autumn-colored patches and seafoam green eyes. She's a very loyal companion, always nearby or lying right beside me on the couch. She is the best comfort kitty ever and loves me with every ounce of her tiny being. She makes me feel special.

We finally got tomatoes! Hurrah!! We have yellow, red and purple tomatoes this year, as usual. They all taste wonderful. I had two tomato sandwiches yesterday, and I'll be heading out to the garden for more of these today for sandwiches throughout the week. I never tire of fresh tomatoes, and I struggle at the end of the growing season, knowing that we won't have them again for months on end. Even the holidays cannot make up for that! Sorry to those of you who love the holidays, but, frankly, I like my tomatoes better than any holiday on our calendar.

As I went through the freezer yesterday, I found some items from our local bakery, as well as a couple of slices of homemade cake a friend had made for us. The items have been in the freezer about as long as they should be, so they are defrosting for us to enjoy today. I'm not sad about it, that's for sure! The bakery items are apple fritters, and the cake is an old-fashioned pineapple cake with an old-fashioned white frosting that has been flavored with pineapple juice. It tastes seriously old school and has been one of my favorite summer cakes that I've ever had. It will make today even better!

I have my home office window open, and the rain just started coming down somewhat heavily. It's a really lovely sound and, unless the rain starts coming in through the window, I'll leave it raised for the ambiance. There something about a summer rain, isn't there? The trains don't appear to be running this morning, but on the off-chance that they are, maybe I'll hear their whistle in the background soon, as well. 

We are, sadly, closing in on the last couple of weeks in July. August and the first part of September will fly by, you watch. I'm going to enjoy the heck out of the remaining summer weeks, and I hope you do, too. The county fair is coming up, and I'm still undecided about going to it. I hope you have a blessed week, and that your weather is gorgeous. It will be Crocktober before you know it!!

Kitters and flowers and it's hawt! Oh, yeah, about the pumpkin patch

Cute stuff is always first, let's look at a couple kitters. Here's Bunny and one of her Hoppers, baby Trudy. Trudy's face is a killer; there's literally just about nothing cuter in the whole world. When I pick up Trudy, I slather that face in about ten kisses. Cannot help myself. She's not a lap kitty, though. She prefers to either cuddle with her mama or to lay near you but not necessarily on your lap. Bunny, however, loves a lap. Bunny thinks she's a dog. She has very dog-like behavior and is sooooooo sweet. I don't think Bunny has ever forgotten that she's been rescued and loved. She has the nicest spirit of gratefulness about her, and she's truly happy.

Then, there's this guy, baby Oscar (I know, I know - he's huge; but he's my baby). Oscar was in our first round of rescue babies and had the world's cutest and tiniest little squeak for a meow. It just melted me every time I heard it. Oscar adores doggies. He loves my Lacey-dog, and when he sees her, he makes a beeline for her in the house. Oscar is perfectly made - he is symmetrical in every way. His stripes are perfectly lined up and mirrored on each side. I've never seen a tabby more perfectly put together than this guy. He's freakin' handsome. Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - I crawl into the bed with him just for the cuddles and to hear his deep, lovely purr. He's a very good boy.

Look at this patch of flowers and veg. It's July, y'all. At this point in the garden game, you can't keep up. It is what it is - lush, plush and wild and woolly. Doesn't meant that it's not gorgeous, though, because it is! Also, some things that look a mess (the herb garden comes to mind) are that way because we build it up at the beginning of the growing season, then we pretty much turn it loose. The herb garden is not for us, although all herbs that we grow are edible and anyone is welcome to eat them! However, the main purpose of the bed is to assist the monarchs and bees. Once they re-discover it and take over, we don't overly-disturb the bed. The pollinators will use that bed up until the first hard freeze of the year. I need to share a picture of the herb bed. You'll feel quite good about the tidiness of your garden and borders once you see it!

And here is a picture of my California giant zinnias! I take bouquets to my office in the summer so that I can enjoy them at work, too. Aren't they gorgeous?! I've grown these for a couple decades now, I believe, and I never ever tire of them. They are a wonderful cutting flower, plus the pollinators love them. No scent, either, so they don't interfere with anything or cause headaches or allergy flare-ups. They're nearly the perfect flower and come in multiple sizes. The heads come in varying shapes and forms, as well. I prefer these huge ones, but I love all of the different sizes and colors. You really cannot go wrong with zinnias.

My birthday hydrangea is flourishing! First time EVER that we've had any luck with hydrangeas. This is a dwarf limelight hydrangea. Here's the deal with these. The summer blooms are the light green that you see in the picture. In the autumn, they will turn pink without any change to the soil. That is truly fascinating. I bought this with a gift card to a local greenhouse that was given to me for my birthday this past May. The idea of the blooms lasting all summer then still blooming in the fall but turning pink?? Yep. That was going home with me. My husband actually noticed the plant at the greenhouse, and I'm so glad he did. I check on it every day, and so far, it loves where it's planted. Fingers crossed it thrives for years and years. P.S. - these like shade and just a bit of sun. It does matter where they are planted. 

So, it's hawt. Not hot. HAWT. When it's this warm, it gets a different spelling. We go to 90 degrees today. Betting we get a pop-up thunderstorm! Storms are forecasted pretty much all day Saturday,  then Sunday is only 79 with more storms. Same song and dance, to cool off a bit, you gotta put up with some yucky stuff first. Not going to complain too much, though. It's not been horribly hot yet this year, so if the heat sets in for a bit, so be it. It is summer, after all.  

The pumpkin patch. What can I say? It was planted later than usual this year in the hopes that the pumpkins don't ripen until mid-October. This way, we have them for Halloween and Thanksgiving. In the past, they ripened by mid-September, but in the South, that's still a warm month. They often rotted before Thanksgiving rolled around. 

I do not decorate with Christmas stuff for Thanksgiving. I keep Thanksgiving as it is - an Autumn holiday with Autumn decoration and foods. Christmas does not make it's debut until either the day after Thanksgiving or the first week of December, depending on the craziness of my schedule. I'll get a picture of the patch and share, along with our herb garden, for the next post. It's still a bit of a jolt to look down towards the pumpkin patch and not already be seeing long vines with buds already. I suspect it'll be another two weeks before we see that, though. Gardens are experiments in progress, always.

It's Friday, and I couldn't be more grateful! With a rainy weekend ahead, I've got to re-think our food. Don't laugh, it is what it is, this crazy food focus that I have. I really want some fried green tomatoes, but I don't want the effort that goes along with it, ha ha. Luckily, I DO have two of Peggy Ann's apple fritters in our freezer, so I think that one of those, along with a cheese omelet, would be really good for breakfast this morning. It's Friday, so I think celebrating with a fritter could become a real thing. For instance, "Y'all! It's Fritter Friday!" sounds an awful lot like a t-shirt slogan to me. Just sayin'.

It's time to really focus on the scary movie/popcorn summer thing and onion rings, tater tots and summer drinks. I hope you have something to look forward to, as well. Wherever you are, whatever your plans, I hope your Friday is good to you and your weekend is even better. 

It's HOOOOMID

Happy Friday! Today's post is brought to you by a smattering of pictures from around the garden and a couple of babies thrown in there for fun. Aren't squash blooms gorgeous? The bees love them. This particular bloom had two honey bees happily making use of the center of the bloom. It was so nice to say "hi" to them. I snapped the picture, sent them love through the airways, and moved on very quietly so as not to disturb them. 

The domesticated raspberries are coming along beautifully. At least we didn't lose these in the late April freezes. Once they get larger and ripen up, I'll cook down a pot of these to create a thin syrup to pour into glasses of ice tea or over ice cream or in coffee - I pretty much use it in anything I want to taste like a mid-summer day. They will get much bigger than this and will turn a beautiful purple/nearly black. These are not typical blackberries and were planted on purpose (thank you, Dad, I love these). They are thornless, so picking them is not a nightmare. Soon, my little friends, you'll be a delicious syrup. . . . .

The zinnias are going wild. All of my pictures are taken with my phone, so a zoom out with the phone creates a weaker picture. I choose instead to take pictures using the phone settings, as it doesn't distort the picture so much. This is just a small portion of the largest zinnia garden. It's stunning in person, pictures don't do it justice. I also provided a couple of closeups so that you can see just how velvety looking these are. I love them so much, and they are the highlight of all my summers and have been for years and years.

Here is one of my favorite corners of the garden. The butterfly bush borders one of the smaller zinnis patches and from there, you can see the hint of the herb garden picket fence, as well as the plush tomato and squash plants. July and early August are our plushest months around here. It goes fast, so I go out to the garden at least once a day to feel the love. Soon, our Mexican sunflower patch will give us some brilliant orange colors. It's always the last flower garden to bloom, but the calendula patches haven't bloomed yet, either. So we'll see who reaches that finish line first!

Sigh. Look at the tomatoes. One word: STUBBORN. It's not their fault that the weather has been so weird this year, it's really not. But for nearly two decades, we've had platter after platter of ripe tomatoes by July 4th. Right now?? They're all still green. Granted, we have tons of them, but no sandwich material yet. I may have to make some fried green tomatoes to go with cheese grits. Cannot beat that for a meal. 

Aren't the onions pretty? I love when they get so large that they pretty much pick themselves! Very little effort is needed to harvest an onion that is ready to eat. They grow so large that they pop out of the ground themselves, as you can see. Home grown onions taste much earthier and have more flavor than store-bought. You can 100 percent tell the difference when you eat them. 

Here are two babies with huge eyes. They've both spotted a bird (NO, we are NOT allowed to go after the birds, we keep a close eye on the kitties and they are not allowed outside if we are not with them). Have you ever seen yummier babies? They are as plush as anything I've ever had, my little tiny miracles who have given me more gray hair in a year's time than pretty much any other life experience so far. If you've never had kitten rescue experience, trust me when I say that it's not easy to keep sickly kittens alive, nor is it easy to get them healthy. This last round of rescues have taken a good year to get in a place where I don't worry constantly about them. I wouldn't trade them for anything, though. 

The weather. What can I say? People are saying "wow, it's so humid today," and I feel like correcting them and saying that when the humidity is this bad, the word they should use is hoooooomid. And it is. It's HOOOOOOMID. It's awful. The loop of humidity where rain breaks through and the humidity lifts briefly and returns with a vengeance is upon us. Generally happens more in the month of June, but this year, it waited for July, I guess. We're in that phase where nothing dries really well on the clothesline, but we persist in using it because it's summer, dadgummit, and I'm going to use the clothesline. The consolation prize is a good one, though. Our July sky is here, and it's beautiful. Thank you, God, for that blue, blue sky. 

My Sonic drink this past week ended up being good, old Cherry Limeade. Generally, I go with Ocean Water this time of year, and I have had a couple of those already. But for some reason, I wanted my throwback favorite this go-around. It was nice for a change, but I did kind of miss my Ocean Water. So next week, we'll curb that craving with a trip through the drive-thru. 

I'm so very grateful for the weekend. It always seems to arrive just in time to save my sanity! It looks like a rainy weekend off and on, so maybe a house project is in order or a movie with popcorn and a Cadbury fruit and nut bar in on the fun menu. We'll see which way inspires me! Wherever you are, I hope your weekend is wonderful and that the weather is lovely and perfect.

 

Ye old weather headaches and flea drop day

This morning's rather mundane news is that I have yet another lovely weather-related headache. We have a system rolling in starting this afternoon that goes through Friday and potentially Saturday. Makes me glad for our gardens to see the rain come in, but it does do a number on my head. Nothing dents these headaches, I've tried. Nothing to do for it but to wait until the system arrives, which will help my headache magically disappear. Ah, well. It is what it is!

We had a really nice Fourth of July. The weather was an absolute gift!! We never got out of the 70s, and the humidity was barely 40 percent most of the afternoon PLUS a constant breeze. There is literally no way to describe just how beautiful it was for the day.  We gathered for food and just to be together, slow down a bit, appreciate the day and remind ourselves that we can do so because we are the "land of the free and the home of the brave." I never lose sight of that, and I am so very grateful.

Just a few pictures below of the house and yard decorated for the day (and the apple pie). I'm a bunting girl. Seeing it in our trees and along our porch just makes me happy. 

I'm loving the summer months, particularly the time spent with the rescues outside. See Bunny (on the left) with Higgins? Bunny still loves her babies. Bunny created her own clowder when she had her three babies, ha ha. She does get annoyed with them from time to time, but in the end, Bunny still loves them, and they all three adore their mama. 

It's flea drop day! That just translates to the cats slithering around after we dose them. They'll act like we've done the worst offense ever to them for a little bit, then they'll suddenly forget that it's flea drop day and things will go back to normal. But the initial administration of the drops is a very big deal. Roll your eyes with me . . . .

It's hard to believe that we are full-on summer now. It's blazing right along (blazing . . . . see what I did there?), isn't it? The Fourth came and went and now we mark time until Labor Day. Back to school shelves are showing up in the stores, and the University where I work is coming back to life as students return for the last summer term class and then roll on into the autumn semester. Soon, the big trees outside my office windows will blaze with color rather than the plush green they are at the moment. You cannot will time to slow down, I know this to be a fact as I've tried on more than one occasion!

In just under three months it will be Crocktober! Last year, I only celebrated Crocktober twice throughout the month. I'm going to try to do a bit better this year, so I'll be looking out some new recipes for that, vegetarian, of course. In the meantime, I hope our tomatoes ripen soon. This is the latest I've ever known them to ripen. Our cooler spring went on and on and on this year, so the tomatoes are sloooooooow to come along because of that. But it's very warm these days, and we've had plenty of sun, so maybe we'll have some soon. My Dukes mayo is waiting patiently for them.

Happy Wednesday to you! If you have storms, may they be gentle. If you have sun, may it be mild. And may we all have the happiest and nicest of breezes during this summer season. Don't forget to hit Sonic soon!!!