Worm Eaters

 There is a tiny bird that sits high at the top of the telephone pole.  She sings her heart out!  I can also see a flicker outside my window, pecking at the same pole. For those of us who do not have pets (sad!) wild birds are a close second!

 Robby looks mad!  He is!  He doesn't want me staring at him and scaring him away from his worms.

 Toadstools!  This isn't good, but Bill mows so often that it isn't a problem. 

 I saw a little finch with grass in her mouth pop into this nice yellow house next door!

 I'm thrilled with the hollyhocks!  I didn't plant them! They came on over from my neighbor's garden.  Last year Bill didn't know they were important so I think he sprayed them with poison (gasp!) but this year they are visible from our bedroom window!  Long ago, I planted hollyhocks from seed and the same neighbor told me that she had never had good fortune with hollyhocks.  Mine came up and were tall and pretty and ever since, they've been dancing around our two flowerbeds!

 The radishes are weird.  The plants are tall but the radishes pull up long and skinny.  Cucumbers are growing fast! 

 More Robby!  The robins wear such lovely clothes, don't they?

 I'm going to pull out all of the lilies because they are WAY too big.  This year, we'll enjoy them.

 Here's the toad house/fairy lodge.  It gets mud- spattered from our sprinklers, but I feel sure the fairies are holding secret meetings within the rounded walls (at midnight, under the moonlight, of course).

 I bought this ratty old tomato plant at the grocery store.  I hope our summer goes long so we can have a tomato or ten!

I like this peak on the front of our house.  When we were house hunting (we had NO endurance and bought on the second day) I didn't really like the outside of this house.  There were big faded trees and ugly cedar bushes in front.  I didn't like the rocky wall either.  Now I do.  I know people who still want their "dream house" and I am not one of those. A fancy dream house can't possibly make our relationships feel any different or make us strong of body so that we can do what is in front of us.  Isn't home the place where we can feel safe and don't we make our own homes personal in different ways?  
Our Jeff and his Christie live right next to a home that has been revamped and turned into a place for a few elderly people.  The occupants have roommates and most of them don't have many visitors.  What would you think of that? What if you were trapped in that kind of environment?  I think I'd figure out a way to get some technology, a really soft comforter, and I'd aim to be so nice to my roommate that she simply HAD to get along with me. I would just HAVE to make my little spot into a home.

I finished Anne Chisholm's biography of Rumer Godden.  Godden was a very prolific writer.  I don't know how she had time to read!  She wasn't really happy until she became a Catholic.  Her early life held anguish and distress.  The biographer took much of her material from letters and diaries, but there are still major gaps.  She doesn't sound as if she was the cheeriest or bounciest sort of person, but WHAT a story teller!  I had better check out the library here or I'm going to spend too much of my pocket money on Rumer Godden books.
I'm also reading the first Maisie Dobbs novel.  It was a recommendation from Heather at Blackberry Rambles (she's GREAT at reviewing books, just like Leslie at Wayside Sacraments). 
I'm reading a lot about aroma therapy.  It's way too much information all at once, so I try to take it in small measures.
I'm going to go down to the kitchen to bake some chocolate chip cookies.  Stop on by for cookies and tea.