It's A Party!

Two great-grandsons had birthdays this weekend. Greyson, left, was three yesterday and Ayden, right, is four today. These brothers are the sweetest. I am so lucky to be around to watch them grow.

There were so many gifts, they hardly knew where to start opening. Greyson got a new Minion backpack for preschool.

Aunt Kathryn gave both boys a dump truck.

They each got a bubble machine. Greyson's is Chase from Paw Patrol.

Ayden's is Thomas the Tank Engine. These bubble blowers were a big hit.

Of course there was cake and ice cream.

It was a great party celebrating these great-grandsons. But great-grandma just about fell asleep on the way home. 😴

June Book List

Ten books read this month, I think about average for me.

Murder on Union Square by Victoria Thompson is #21 in the Gaslight Mystery Series. I always enjoy these books and was sorry when a friend told me she had heard that #20 was her last book. I looked online and found that this book was soon to be released. Both she, I and the person who had given her the wrong info, were all glad to learn it wasn't true.

Mind Prey and Sudden Prey by John Sandford are 7 & 8 in his Lucas Davenport series.

Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles was the best read this month. As noted previously, Jiles is one of my current favorite authors.  Adair Colley, her brother and two sisters were living with their father on a farm near the Missouri - Arkansas border in Southeast Missouri when the Civil War broke out. Their lives were torn apart by soldiers from both sides as well as outlaw factions.
Each chapter begins with a historic passage about the war, reported by members of the Union and Confederate forces as well as people living in SE Missouri. This is a very moving, thought provoking, realistic novel about the Civil War, especially the civilians caught up in it.

'Til Death Do Us Part by Kate White is one in her Bailey Weggins series. After three of the bridesmaids in a recent wedding have been murdered, Bailey wonders if she is next. As a mystery, this is an okay read, I just don't relate well to the lives of the rich. This was my least favorite this month.

Secret Prey and Certain Prey are #'s 8 and 9 in John Sandford's Lucas Davenport series. These books are like potato chips, you can't eat (read) just one.

The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George is #20 in her Inspector Lynley/Barbara Havers series. It seems like a long wait, but well worth it, for a new novel about this team. Havers is still on thin ice, in danger of being demoted to a distant division in the hinterlands, if she doesn't follow strict police procedures. When she is paired with her 'guv', staying on track is doubly important and hard to do.

Death Of An Expert Witness by P.D. James is an older one of her Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh mysteries. Her books are always so good, not just for the mystery part, but also for her writing acumen. The first part of this book was the set-up for all the characters and the reasons they may have had for killing the victim(s). It was hard for me to place them all. It wasn't until Insp. Dalgliesh came on the scene that I could start to distinguish the suspects and their motives.

Easy Prey by John Sandford is #10 in his Lucas Davenport series and the 10th book I read this month. (Just finished it this a.m.) I still have seventeen more books to read before I get to his latest (#28) that just came out.

With company coming for our family Christmas in July and all the cleaning I *should* do, July's reading list may suffer in quantity; hopefully it will be compensated by quality.

More Signs of Aging?

If you plug 'dementia' into the search box at the top left side of my blog, the returns will show you all the times I've already posted something about one of my biggest worries.
This is what I shared on Facebook yesterday: "Uh-oh. I've been forgetting names for some time, but this morning I found my box of cereal in the laundry room. 😊but not, more like 😟" It's hard to believe I didn't put it in the pantry cupboard as I do each and every day.

A couple of days ago and again today, two different old sayings, ones I haven't used or even thought of for ages, have popped out of my mouth. Is this another sign of aging - remembering more from youth and less about what happened yesterday?

The first was flying off the handle, which means losing self-control; acting before thinking. It alludes to the uncontrolled way a loose axe head flies off from its handle. (I used to have an axe like that. Really. I've also been known to fly off the handle - more than a few times.)

This morning, I forget what we were talking about, I said, that'll throw a spanner in it. Bud remarked the other way of saying the same thing, throw a wrench in it. Either way, it means to do something that prevents a plan or activity from succeeding.
A spanner is the British term for a wrench. Ah, back to my English great-great-great grandparents for credit.

I don't care if remembering old sayings is a sign of old age. I am happy to be remembering some of them. My grandparents had so many sprinkled throughout their daily conversations. It is almost like hearing their voices again.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Meaning even difficulties have some hopeful aspect, even if you can't see it yet. Isn't that what my picture of the clouds (from Tuesday evening) represent? Gray for grief; pink for possibilty?

Wowzers! 60-70 MPH Winds

Things got interesting around here just before noon. Skies darkened. Ugly looking clouds rolled rushed in.

Trees started whipping around.

Deck furniture got tossed about.

Lots of small limbs


and leaves littered the landscape.

The wind even brought a few medium-sized limbs down.

More tree thrashing...

...furniture displacement and hanging plant and wind chimes blown down, then it was pretty much over. Five or so minutes of WIND; no hail and only a smattering of rain.

Doing some further reconnoitering a couple hours later and I noticed a good-sized limb broken and hanging down in the tree next door. That is always my biggest concern - one of these days that rotten old maple is gonna come crashing down on our house.

I know there was a lot more damage in areas around us. I'm grateful for our good luck.

Cattails and Heron

I have been taking a series of photos of the cattails.
Monday, they were dancing in the wind.

Yesterday, the heron went strolling by.

Last Saturday when I saw the heron, I thought there were two, or maybe a young one along.

Zooming in showed me something I had never seen before, the way the heron had its wings out. One site I found online calls this a sunning or wing drying posture. Another name is the flasher pose.

Half-way flashing. This is probably how it was standing when I first noticed it and thought there was more than one heron. By the time I got my camera and zoomed in, it had both wings out.
I am lucky to have so much wildlife just outside my window - and to see these, new-to-me, behaviors.

Blue-Eyed Grass
  By Mary Hunter Austin

Blue-eyed grass in the meadow
   And yarrow-blooms on the hill,
Cattails that rustle and whisper,
   And winds that are never still;

Blue-eyed grass in the meadow,
   A linnet's nest nearby,
Blackbirds caroling clearly
   Somewhere between earth and sky;

Blue-eyed grass in the meadow,
   And the laden bee's low hum,
Milkweeds all by the roadside,
   To tell us summer has come.

Waked An Hour Too Soon

Morning Song

A Diamond of a morning
Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
And left the faint white moon.

Oh white moon, you are lonely,
It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
Only the lonely are free.
    (Sara Teasdale)

The 'pull of the moon' may have nothing to do with it, but I often have trouble sleeping when the moon is full, or almost full. Last night was so. Hard to go to sleep, early to waken. Although, the sad news of the death of my daughter-in-law's younger sister, probably had more to do with it than the phase of the moon. 💔😢

Love A Rainy Night

♪ ♪ Well I love a rainy night; I love a rainy night.
I love to hear the thunder;
watch the lightning when it lights up the sky. ♪ ♪

A week of cool, rainy weather. The official beginning of summer last Thursday felt more like May weather. May, when we had temperatures in the 90's with heat indices in the 100's, felt more like summer.

I took these two photos Sunday evening. Wind was blowing, rain was pouring and running down the street. We had 2.35 inches.

Yesterday afternoon it rained off and on. I wanted to go to the Farmers' Market at 4:00, but it was looking pretty iffy. Then it started clearing a bit so we went. There weren't as many vendors as usual because of the rain.
An hour or so later, it started raining hard. Then the tornado sirens went off. It didn't look that bad out, but we had lost TV coverage so didn't know what was going on until we went online and learned that, while no funnel clouds had been reported, the radar was showing bow echo returns southwest of us.

The rain and the danger had passed but there were still some thunder heads out there when I took this picture at 6:45.

At 8:15, the sun was shining.

♪ Showers wash all my cares away;
I wake up to a sunny day,
'cause I love a rainy night. ♪

We did have another 80/100's in the guage this morning for a total from last Tuesday to today of 4.65 inches of rain. At least here we do not worry about flooding. Creston was so named because it is located on the crest between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; high ground.
But we have had two tornadoes in the ten years we've lived here, so there is that.

(Lyrics from Eddie Rabbit's I Love A Rainy Night)