It has been insanely hot here. With the humidity, it’s averaged around 103 for the past few days. Phew, huh?

This morning, it RAINED! I was so excited. The squirrels were excited. Everyone is happy! Of course now it’s sunny and even more humid, but hey. We got rained on. Neener neener.

That poor baby black squirrel was so hot yesterday, he flopped over the bottom rung on the ladder of the slide and just stayed like that for a good 10-15 minutes. Kinda scared me, I thought he was a goner! It must have been a cool spot for his belly.

I’ve been dinking with a new simplified skin for my blog, and most of it is done if you want to have a look at it (the skin dropdown is under “bloggy do’s”, it’s the clean & simple version). I’m trying to learn this coding stuff! I’ve got a 80 page book in front of me that I’m reading as I go. Eesh! If you don’t like it or don’t wanna stay on that skin, just switch back. It’ll be okay, I promise!

I think I’m gonna paint today. On a canvas, with oils. How ’bout that?!

I’m telling ya, every animal at the Zoo knew what to do when they saw me with my camera!

Caption this Giraffe!
(As many times as you want, just for fun!)

For the first time ever, I’m growing poppies! It’s been over a month since I put seed down to grow a “humminbird and butterfly” garden. We built up this giant mound in the backyard, put a birdbath near it, and everything is growing like crazy. It looks like a bit of prairie snuck into the backyard! I just wish I had as many hummingbirds and butterflies as we have bumblebees. Argh.

Regardless, I have some beautiful poppies blooming, so I took a couple of pics for you. Aren’t they pretty? If I water them, they’ll fall apart. They seem so fragile, and they make me want to buy rice paper and paint a watercolor or something. Wierd. But hey, any inspiration is a good inspiration, I say!

This guy cracked me up this weekend, and I knew when I saw him that it was going to be a good day for critter pics. So here ya go –

Caption this Chimp!
(As many times as you want, just for fun!)

If I’m not around for a few days, no need to panic – just caption, have a giggle, and I’ll join in when I can!

Caption this Monkey!
(As many times as you want, just for fun!)

Say that 3x fast! Not because it’s a tongue twister really, just cause it sounds kinda funny when you do that.

Caption This!
(As many times as you want, just for fun!)

This week, the moon is the lowest-hanging moon we’ve seen in 18 years. Well you know how I love a challenge, I took my camera and tripod out and attempted to get some very neat shots of Mr. Moon. Here’s the first one, the rest of my faves are hiding so you’ll have to “read more”. I’m going to have to start saving my pennies for the super zoom lens, I’d like to get more clear pics of the surface of the moon, but the glow is just fine for now. 😉

Caption this!
(As many times as you want, just for fun!)

Okay so he’s a wierd lookin’ bird. He was pretty interesting to watch though, what do you think he’s thinking?

This is his “good side”, too. He’s missing an eye on the other side, poor wierd lookin’ dude. You know I painted a California Condor once, a long time ago, and it never sold. I guess wierd lookin’ bird paintings aren’t very popular. Beat me over the head with a wierd lookin’ bird stick. I never would have guessed!

To all the dads out there today who interact with their kids, who are there to guide them and nurture them and give their kids the fatherly love and attention that every kid needs and deserves, who reacted to their thoughtful Father’s Day cards with tears welling up in their eyes; to the dads who are missing their kids today because they’re defending our Country, I would just like to recognize you guys and say “Happy Father’s Day”, and thanks.

To all the moms out there who act as mother and father in your household, I commend you and wish you a Happy Father’s Day, too. ‘Cause if you do both jobs, you should get two days of special recognition every year.

😀