Lazy Daze...And My Neighbors, The Hummingbird Whisperers...

My apologies, I've gone and done it again. I haven't posted anything all week! You gotta cut me a break! It's summer! My computer crashed...uh, we lost electricity....I was locked out of the house...please forgive me! That was my rendition of John Belushi's famous "excuse scene" in the Blues Brothers....anyway, it is summer and the days do tend to get away from me. Especially since we have FINALLY had some nice weather in New England...so usually right after dinner, it's outside to check on the garden and then in the pool. This is usually when I notice the throngs of hummingbirds practically waiting in line to get at my neighbors hummingbird feeder.

We also have a hummingbird feeder hanging off our back deck, just like they do. We almost never had hummingbirds as we always used that red "food" you buy in the store. This must be the hummingbird equivalent of stale saltines. We finally asked our neighbors what they used and he said he makes is with water and sugar. So Mike dutifully made up a batch and like magic we have had hummingbirds daily. They are so amazing I could watch them all day. Now, even though we get them now and then, it's still nothing like my neighbors house...so I call them the hummingbird whisperers...but don't tell them, they don't know that yet....uh, I guess they probably know now if they are reading this!

So just as my neighbors are the hummingbird whisperers, my daughter is the dragon fly whisperer. (warning: close up photo of a dragonfly coming up-skip if you don't like them!) We love dragonflies....they do not bite, as many people think. Many times they will land gently on your hand if you let them, and look up at you curiously with their over sized eyes. With the pool, however, many of them end up in the water. The dragonflies view the pool as a huge bird bath I guess because we watch them swoop in for a drink of water and fly away. Sometimes they swoop too close and if their wings get stuck in the surface tension of the water, they're stuck there. Bethany feels it is her mission to save all of these dragonflies before they end up in the dreaded pool filter. Last week, it seemed that almost all of the dragonflies we came in contact with, were carrying eggs! We never noticed eggs before so I grabbed a photo of one on Beth's finger...she literally has it upside down so I can get a photo of all the little black eggs stuck to it's under side...it's like she lulled it to sleep and can make it do whatever she wants....

I guess it's touch to see the eggs in this photo, but you can see what I mean about her effect on it.

Along with the garden we planted this year, we also planted morning glory seeds. I grew up with morning glories around our garage door. If you are not familiar with them, their vines grow far and their flowers can only be seen in the morning. They literally close up in the afternoon and evening. My favorite part of the flowers are the new flowers that haven't opened yet. The bud is twisted up like this one...
and they have a nice, spiral look to them. I almost stepped in dog poop walking over to take this photo...the hardships I endure for you people! Here it is from a different view...

Moving on to the garden. Before we picked our first squash last week, I had been out checking on said squash, admiring how they were coming along and all the plants were nice and green and leafy. Then I went walking up my deck stairs only to see my neighbor walking up his deck stairs with an armful of nice, big squash and zucchini. My ego instantly deflated.

Since then, however, we have picked a few squash and cherry tomatoes.

Here is a photo of our Barbie peppers, as my friend, Julie, would say....ok not really, but they are still really small...

A few cherry tomatoes, almost ready for the picking....

And is that a cucumber I see hiding in there?

Now this character has been hanging around with his mate and we can't get enough of them. Cardinals are just so red and striking and fantastic. It's usually not that often that we see them, until now. He seems to come around every night after dinner...but he never lets me get close enough to get a good picture of him...

And this is what happens when hubby takes photos. I wasn't there, otherwise this would have been a great photo of my daughter and two of the Patriots cheerleaders at Gillette Stadium. Instead we have shadows in the clubhouse. Brilliant!