Not too much new here, other than the summer heat has moved in, and we’ve had the rainiest June on record. Although ‘on record’ seems to have a different meaning for news reporters these days. I was listening to a report on the local news the other night about how high the Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis is flowing, and the reporter was enthusiastically stating that it was the highest measured since they installed the latest measuring device… in 2006. Wow! Really impressive! But seriously, this is the 2nd rainiest June since the 1870s, and we’ve got the mosquitoes to prove it.

Most of our birds seem to have moved on. We still have the blue jays, red winged blackbirds, chickadees and cowbirds, but very few orioles and hummingbirds. Even the goldfinches are few and far between. But I did get a couple of nice photos that I haven’t posted yet, an Indigo Bunting and an oriole,

I bought a kid’s wading pool for the dogs. I thought they would enjoy it in the heat, but Pyr had to be persuaded (actually, lifted) to go in, and Suka had more fun just playing with Christian,


I finished with my mule team drawing, and am moving on to a Baltimore Oriole drawing,