It's Still Summer

 It's lunchtime, so I made you some strawberry cucumber salad.  Do you like a nice pomegranate vinaigrette?   

 The sunflowers have really overstepped their bounds.  Look at them!  Our entire front garden is a wild tangled mess.  A good mess!

 It's hard to snap photos while avoiding weeds, but don't you LOVE pinwheel petunias?

 See how this corner is changing?  Hollyhocks come up any old place!  They are growing right out of the rocks.

 We had to remove our big maple tree because we did not want it to fall on our dear neighbors' house!  She won't give up though!  Look at the little shoots!  Maple trees remind me of fall and school starting.  Do you press leaves into your fat books?  I do.  I feel sort of romantic when I look at Birdie and Miss Bug's school uniforms, little plaid skirts and khaki jumpers.  I like football season (the idea of it, not the actual watching of games) and harvest doings.  However, when I think of being gone from my house-nest for ten hours a day . . . 
Well, let's not think about that.

 My friend Kerri (a fairy poet from New Zealand) sent me a most generous gift:  Mr. Hare.  I had admired him in her Etsy shop (Poetry and Cloth).  Isn't he handsome?  Hares are special you know.  

 My dear sister, Karol, brought another reading gnome to me.  With all the stuff she had to haul to Guemes Island, she brought me a goodie, too.  She is very nice.  You'd love her.

 Speaking of nice people, my Cambodian friend Christina and her little boy Nathan sent me this little mouse.  Do you like his fancy outfit?  He might marry Grace the mouse.  They make a funny couple.  She's all wooly and old fashioned and he's snazzy.

 I didn't take too many photos of the land of my youth, but the farms were stunning.  They've had a lot of rain, too!  The weather there has been like the weather in England.  DAMP.

 This little string of cabins on Guemes Island is so charming.  They are rustic, but very cozy.  I think we could live in a lot smaller spaces than we do, don't you?  Maybe we'd be forced to go outside more if our "digs" were cramped and small.  My brother and his lovely wife stayed in the cabin they stay in every year, so before the flock of additional siblings arrived and before Bill had to fly back to Denver, we went to the beach for a sneak preview.  Bill had fun talking to my mom and dad.  Don't they look comfortable soaking up the sea view?

 I forgot to show you this photo of our boys.  I took it a few weeks ago.  Jeff is moving into an apartment this week (sad face for Mom) and Brad lives an hour and a half away.  I do love my boys' twinkly eyes and happy smiles.  They are good men.

 I spent yesterday on the sofa with a sore throat and a fever.  I watched the Olympics and dozed.  My doctor said that I probably caught this bug while on the airplane.  I felt so horrible yesterday that in comparison, today I feel GREAT!

So, the Year of the Toadstool: Summertime has rolled along so nicely.  Friends pass toadstool views along to me (thank you, Katie!) and I have found a toadstool sister (Julie!) and gnomes and toadstools and fairies gather close by.  
Miss Bug and Birdie are "sleeping over" tomorrow night. We'll make fairy cakes and play with stickers.  
Sam comes Friday for an all-day stay with us. Yippee!  
My sister-in-law is flying to Denver for a good visit and Monday is the third annual FINN'S Picnic!  So, it's picnic food all around, splashes in the blow up pool, and family, family, family.
Oh for heaven's sake.  It IS still summer!  Hooray!