Back into the furnace, 91° here. We really need rain. In May-early June, we had 10” of rain, less than a half inch since then.

Birds, flowers and a lonely bead tonight, a house finch and mate,

a red-breasted grosbeak and mate,

with a bill full of jelly,

2 baby barn swallows

a beautiful calla lily and day lilies,

and my lonely bead,

A cold front finally came through! We got a touch of rain, not nearly enough as scorching hot as it’s been, but better than nothing.
The birds have really been appreciating the bird bath with the hot weather, and I’ve been enjoying their antics. Here’s a male Baltimore Oriole enjoying the cool water,

And having a bite to eat,


And I saw a new bird the other day, a Brown Thrasher. It’s always so exciting to see a new bird. Hmmm, does that say anything about my life?

68° in Los Angeles and 100° in Minneapolis. Now that’s just NOT right!

Blacccchhhh!! 100° in the shade, on the north side of the house. Talk about a blast furnace!

Having a ribeye steak has not only a feeling of satisfaction on producing a quality product on your own farm, but it also has a bit of feeling of payback.

6:45 a.m., a call from Lynn, our neighbor, ‘I have a cow by my garage!’ So wake up Christian, get a bucket of feed and start calling the cows to get them to come up by the barn. I was cussing, wondering how the heck they got through 4 strands of barbed wire, and thinking, ‘OK, maybe put up a strand of electric wire on the inside of the barbed wire fence?’ and dreading having to do that in this heat. So the cows are coming in from 2 different pastures, and there running up the driveway is Chuck, last year’s spring calf. How the heck did he get through the barbed wire?!? Then comes one of the twins. All the rest come in from the pastures. Ah hah! I know how they got out! I had left the big barn door open to clean barn, and they shinnied under or over the inside pen. When they’re that young, they are like deer, over and under.

Cows are all back together, barn door is shut, and I’m going to finish my computer work and try to make some beads before it gets too warm.

It’s been so hot that I haven’t been making beads, so I’ve been trying to decide on something else to do until the heat is past. It’s between embroider, quilting, oil or watercolor painting, or pen and ink (I was working on cross stitch until Chunk, the ferret, got up on my desk and overturned a plant onto it. That kind of killed the enthusiasm for that!).

My bookcase is progressing! Just about ready to start stacking books!!!

I’ve been enjoying the colors of the flower gardens and all of the baby birds. Here’s a mama Oriole feeding baby,

And here’s baby taking a bath,

All fluffed up and clean, time to dry off,

And here’s Honey taking a nap on my kiln (she likes to sit up there and watch the birds and drool),

ETA: More oriole babies!! Mama feeding one of her babies,

The one grabbing the big mouthful is Mama, the other three are babies squawking to be fed,

Baby getting a mouthful of jelly,

and here’s baby trying to get some by himself,

Whoops! Planted a foot in the food instead of on the glass rim,

The simple pleasures of life, supper was creamed green beans on toast, with beans just picked from my garden. Yummm!

The best days of the year are gone, March to June. The days are getting shorter and hotter, the mosquitoes, deer flies, barn flies and gnats rule, the gardens are all planted and now it’s trying to stay on top of the weeds while fighting off the bugs. Do I sound depressed? Maybe a little, but as Christian keeps reminding me, it’s better than -40°, and I do have to agree. I can go outside barefoot, and I’ve got such lovely colors to look at out my window.

Purely pets today. Honey, my studio cat, likes to sleep on my printer,

My spoiled deva, Pip, found a new spot to take a nap,

Suka is such a goofy, cute dog! Here he is with one of his toys,

and after getting clipped, (the last one is so out of focus! But it just shows his exuberance)

65° lovely cool degrees, and trying to figure out the best use of my time before I fizzle out. Do I get more plants planted (did 5-6 big pots this a.m.), more hay spread (did a truck-load this a.m.), clean my studio floor (haven’t done that for a while), list beads (did that yesterday), go till up some ground (hmmm, maybe I’ll do that)?

Some beads I’ve listed lately:

96° yesterday afternoon, and now it’s a LOVELY COOL 58°! Got to love summer cold fronts. :)

Another hot day here today, up to 90°, but then we have some nice cool weather coming in, so this week I’m aiming at getting all of my seedlings in the ground. All of my vegetable plants are in, so now it’s the flowers’ turn.
My birds appreciate me finally getting some water running for them, they are so funny the way they fluff up and shake themselves off.

If I have have any doubts about who rules this house, all I have to do is look at the way I start my day.

1. Get up and go open the doggie door.
2. Run for the bathroom and get Pip to come in with me so she doesn’t go into Lukas’ room and wake him up.
3. Go to the kitchen after getting Squeak out of Lukas’ bedroom and get the bedroom doors shut up so the boys can sleep a while longer. Feed the dogs their can of dog food, one spoonful at a time, with them taking turns.
4. Head out with all three dogs and try to get Squeak to do all of her business outside. Supervise so Suka doesn’t try playing with either of the little ones while they’re taking care of business.
5. Head on back to the kitchen and divide up a can of cat food into three dishes, one for K.C., one for Honey (my studio cat), and one for the outside cats. Put them in their respective spots.
6. Make my coffee and head to the studio to catch up on my email and the news.

This past week was a long, trying one. Wednesday we had our oldest dog, Chester, put down. He was 14 and couldn’t keep any food down anymore. He wasn’t an in-your-face dog like Suka, he was just always there, looking for a treat or a pat, and I miss him.
Here he is taking a nap with me,

and he was such a cat magnet,



Saturday we went down to the farm to work on getting the trailer house cleaned out. The old house is no more, it’s been bulldozed into a pit and replaced with a pole shed, and as soon as we get the trailer house cleaned out, that will be hauled away. It’s a sad process.
We worked on the middle bedroom, and got it down to bare floor. Towards the end of Mom’s life, she saved so many things, plastic bags, pieces of aluminum foil, magazine offers... and every box had to be gone through. One box had photographs from the 40s and 50s, I felt like I’d hit a jackpot when we found it.

My brother Bob has a tractor there to haul things around, so Scott and Scottie got to drive it. Two little boys in second heaven... :)


Yesterday the boys came up and we worked on fencing in the woods. I was using the tractor to push down saplings and raspberry plants, and this is what happens when you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing,

I was watched over, enough said.

And a saucy Oriole, checking me out through the window,

One of the worst things about getting old is saying more goodbyes than hellos.