Real Summer Days

This is real summer !  Nice cool mornings and if we get up nice and early, we can get the outdoor work all done before it gets too hot.  I finally got my garden weeded and tended to a couple of the smaller flower beds.

Dennis THINKS he has won the battle with the red squirrel ! Oh yeah, there are two of them.  They are enemies and love to fight and chatter insults at each other.  We watched the other day as they had a knock down drag out time atop the feeder, the winner shoving the other off and going to stand on top of his world with his back feet jumping up and down. Guess he doesn't know about beating on his chest like an ape would do. Dennis sort of won his battle by taking the feeder away !   It was about time anyway.  BUT they still sit in the cherry tree, come way out on a limb and think about walking the tight rope to where the feeder used to be.  They are truly baffled.  We notice that they now climb up the garden hose that is reeled up on the side of the house then proceed to get onto a shutter and on up to the rain gutters.  On the way they seem to peek in the window to see where that man is that has taken the feeder away!

Speaking of wild life, our neighbors, the ones who bring us the quail eggs, are raising an orphan quail.  He is a tiny little fellow and they hope he will make it.  She showed him to us the other day.  Such a tiny little feather ball !  All this stuff about quails all at once. First, our introduction to the gift of quail eggs.  Before we saw the little one, some  friends from up north lent us a book to read..."That Quail, Robert" by Margaret S. Stanger.  A delightful story, so far about a family who found an abandoned baby and took him home to raise.  It seems that when a mother quail leaves her nest with the young ones she never returns to the nest where her chicks hatched.  They saw her leave with twelve little feather balls following her across a driveway into the woods.  So the family decided to check out the nest later.  That is when they discovered there was a baby left behind in the nest !  As mamma never came back, they adopted this little one and the book goes on about his life growing up with humans.

This little fellow was kind enough to allow me to take his photograph.

These hot afternoons are a great time to stay inside and do something we either push to the bottom of our 'want to do list' or the NEED to do list.  So on these hot ones, I decided to do something from each of my lists.  I cleaned out my closet...from the Need to do list.  I got 2 boxes of things I haven't worn for more than a year and shuffled about some other things.  Then I decided to get out my paints and do something from the Want to do list.   Paint a small watercolor, being inspired by our trip to the Northeast Kingdom last week.  It was a fun, relaxing afternoon and I pretty much liked my painting.  Sometimes I am not too happy with what I end up with !

Summer in The Northeast Kingdom

Well, hubby is asking if I'd like to take a ride and have an ice cream.  I don't have to be asked a second time !  So hoping you are enjoying this summer weather.  Find a nice swimming hole or maybe take a paddle in a kayak on a quiet pond far from the noise and busy to-do of crowded places.  I hope I can do exactly this later this week !    Keep cool !