It Was a Great Day…

…for a walk in the neighborhood.

The hydrangeas are really blooming dramatically right now. This one is such an intense blue.

Beautiful lilies blooming.

A lighter blue hydrangea. I really enjoyed how the sun was shining on these blooms.

The next photos are from my own yard when I returned from my walk.

My blueberries are getting ready and I have to be fast to beat the birds to the ripe ones!

Our pears are getting bigger. They usually aren’t ready until late August or early September.

I didn’t plant this Foxglove but it’s blooming in my yard. Such a pretty flower.

It’s wonderful when the weather encourages us to get out and about and enjoy the scenery. I really need the extra exercise and I’m thankful for the motivation I get from the good weather we are having in the Northwest right now. Tomorrow I’ll share the great Yard Art I encountered on my latest walk!

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment. I appreciate it.

Oops forgot to link up to Susan at The Southern DayDreamer for Outdoor Wednesday!

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Ruby Tuesday…

I think this crow thinks he’s the King of the World…

I wonder how Mr. Rooster feels about that…

For more Ruby Tuesday visit Mary at Work of the Poet.

Flowers in Mosaics With Blue?

It’s a stretch but I think there is some blue in the mosaic of my Hydrangea so please click over to Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and Sally at Smiling Sally for Blue Monday. But wait, I’m also linking to Today’s Thrifty Treasures hosted by Rhoda at Southern Hospitality. Don’t I sound like one of those awful commercials that are selling super duper Magic Cloths or something?

My little potted Hydrangea that I planted a few years ago is really showing well this year. I think I got a total of 5 blooms last year. My friend Beth gave me this Hydrangea a few years back for my birthday and it was pink. When I re-planted it here in this spot it bloomed purple and blue.

On a river trail walk with my sister we did a lot of stopping to take pictures. These are some of the wild flowers we found growing. I’m calling them wild because they seemed to grow on their own with no help from any human being. LOL with that definition all the flowers in my yard are wild. Thank goodness the Master Gardener keeps them alive.

Now for my Thrifty Treasure. I bought this Villeroy and Boch pitcher at Goodwill for $5.95. I decided to bring the outdoors in and use this pitcher as a vase for my hydrangeas. It also will qualify for Blue Monday with it’s blue motif.

This week I’m getting ready for an onslaught of visitors from Southern California. The first group arrives next Monday with overlapping guests arriving the following week. At one point during those two weeks we’ll have 9 out of state visitors together. Half will be staying with my sister who lives a couple minutes from me and half will be at my house. Whoohoo time to partay! I will probably be a random blogger during this time.

Dear and I are saving our big trips for the Fall. In September our daughter Katie and I are traveling to Parris Island via Savannah to attend her boyfriend’s graduation from Marine Boot Camp. In October Dear and I are headed to Dallas to visit my brother, SIL, and little Hope. Do you have any travel plans?

Thanks for visiting and have a great week!

Espana Wins…

Congratulations to Spain for winning the World Cup 2010. Until we meet again in Brazil for World Cup 2014 they are the Soccer Champs of the World.

I will miss my daily dose of World Cup Soccer. I know a lot of people don’t enjoy watching soccer but it really has become my favorite sport to watch since I caught the bug in 1994. Tonight I get to cap off the World Cup Final by going to Qwest Field to watch the Seattle Sounders play F.C. Dallas with Josh and Laura. Going to a Sounders game at home is as close to being at a World Cup Game I’m going to get until World Cup comes to the U.S. again, hopefully in 2018. How about that now famous Octopus Paul who predicted all those soccer game winners correctly….crazy.

Summer Suns Are Glowing ~ Hymn

Summer Suns Are Glowing

Summer suns are glowing over land and sea;
Happy light is flowing, bountiful and free;
Everything rejoices in the mellow rays;
Earth’s ten thousand voices swell the psalm of praise.

God’s free mercy streameth over all the world,
And His banner gleameth, by His church unfurled;
Broad and deep and glorious, as the heaven above,
Shines in might victorious His eternal love.

Lord, upon our blindness Thy pure radiance pour;
For Thy lovingkindness we would love Thee more;
And when clouds are drifting dark across the sky,
Then, the veil uplifting, Father, be Thou nigh.

We will never doubt Thee, though Thou veil Thy light;
Life is dark without Thee, death with Thee is bright;
Light of light, shine o’er us on our pilgrim way;
Go Thou still before us to the endless day.

Words: William W. How

Oh the Sweet Smell…

…of Lavender

Lavender and Clement Robinson
(Handefull of Pleasant Delites, 1584)

Lavender is for lovers true,

Which evermore be faine;

Desiring always for to have

Some pleasure for their paine:

And when that they obtained have

The love that they require,

Then have they all their perfect joie,

And quenched is the fire.

Next weekend is the Lavender Festival in Sequim on the Kitsap Penninsula. I’m thinking about going and checking out the fields early on Friday with hopes of taking our summer visitors there the week after the festival. I’ve never been and would like to know what to expect before I haul a car full of visitors over there. I’d also like to inquire about how long the fields are full before they are cut back.

FFF ~ Fast Forward Summer

Susanne at Living to Tell the Story is our hostess for Friday’s Fave Five. Think back over this last week and come up with 5 favorites. For us in the Pacific Northwest Summer arrived with a vengeance this week. We had cool rainy weather since the 1st day of summer and then after our outdoor barbecues to celebrate the 4th of July we finally got sunshine and record breaking heat. I for one am hoping we return to our mild nice sunshiny summer temps of 75-80 degrees soon. But I’m getting way too wordy so here’s my five…

1. Walking the trail with my sister Lana and seeing great flowers growing wild and spotting the first Blue Heron I’ve ever seen on the trail. I’ve been walking the trail for over 6 years! Saturday was Lana’s first time on the trail.

2. Putting out the Patio furniture. We put the furniture out on July 4th a few hours before our guests arrived.

3. Having our traditional 4th of July barbecue with friends and family.

4. My hydrangea blooming it’s color for me to enjoy from my kitchen window.

5. Soccer, soccer, soccer! I love my morning CUP of World Cup Soccer. I’m going to miss it since the final is this Sunday. Sunday will be a full soccer day with watching World Cup and then heading to Qwest field for a Seattle Sounders game against FC Dallas at 7:30.

What were some of your favorite events or things from this last week?

The Herons of Bothell…

The Herons of Elmwood

Warm and still is the summer night,
As here by the river’s brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.

Silent are all the sounds of day;
Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
O’er the poet’s house in the Elmwood thickets.

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass
To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green morass;
And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern,
And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

Sing of the air, and the wild delight
Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you,
The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight
Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.

Of the landscape lying so far below,
With its towns and rivers and desert places;
And the splendor of light above, and the glow
Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.

Ask him if songs of the Troubadours,
Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter,
Sound in his ears more sweet than yours,
And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.

Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate,
Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting,
Some one hath lingered to meditate,
And send him unseen this friendly greeting;

That many another hath done the same,
Though not by a sound was the silence broken;
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Today I’ll be looking for a cool spot to escape to like this Heron. My sister Lana and I spotted him on the Sammamish River Trail last weekend. We are suppose to have the hottest temperatures of the year today and break some more records in the Pacific Northwest. I’ll do my running around early and then move as little as possible the rest of the day. I’ll be waiting for temps in the low 80’s and high 70’s before I plan some summer adventures. How about you? Is it cool enough for an adventure where you are?

Yard Art ~ Random…

Have you spotted any interesting Yard Art in your neighborhood or on your drives here and there?

One walk and two very different pieces of yard art. For the second one I had to try to aim my camera over a fence so I didn’t get the best angle.

Please visit Mary at Work of the Poet to see more “ART”

We’re having our first really hot day of the season today with tomorrow promising to be hotter still. I’m laying low enjoying World Cup soccer. I’ve been reading another great book by L.M. Montgomery called Chronicles of Avonlea. Each chapter is a stand alone story. Makes me want to visit Kathie on Prince Edward Island. I’m working on getting inspired to walk again more regularly. We will be having family coming to Washington from Southern California starting July 19th and continuing to August 3rd. Going to have to get my pantry in order….next week.

Finally…

…we pulled out the patio furniture.

Just in time because you know what these early morning shadows mean…summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest!

This is the latest we’ve ever waited to pull out the furniture.

It was just right today and the next few days are predicted to be hot, hot, hot!

We’ve heard about the scorching temps in the Northeast and hope you get some relief soon.

I’m hoping for a nice stretch of 75 degree weather after this little heat wave rolls through.

My hydrangeas are deciding it’s time to show their color. I’ll be pulling out the hose to water the rest of the week. That’s the first time I’ve had to do that this summer, too.

How’s your weather?

I’m adding this post to Susan’s Outdoor Wednesday!

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage