It's the humidity

It was a humid day that made the kinds of clouds that make you imagine you see things in them. These looked to me like a stampede of wild horses.

The old gate that leads to the fallow deserted yard at the front of my place.

This is a giant catnip plant that rooted by my front porch from the seeds out of one of Mister's toys. It has little violets peeping out.

A climbing rose by the house.

My clematis is doing well. It's the first one that I've started successfully. It's about 4 years old. Below it is tansy, which is just starting to bloom. The clematis faces south, and its roots are near the oak rain barrel, because clematis likes to keep its feet cool.

It's been a perfect summer so far at the farm. Not too hot, lots of rain but not too much, which makes it more humid here than usual.  Things seem to grow better with some humidity. It's also better for sleeping.

Busy Sky

The sky was busy yesterday afternoon. We were under a tornado warning and there was a lot of convection happening above us.

Notice the slice of blue sky above.

We had a small amount of hail, some lightning up in the clouds but no strikes on land. Distant thunder.

And my latest birdhouse. It has a tin roof along the peak. It weathered the storm.

Summer life

The hay is growing.

This amazing little beetle crawled up on my lap. Its colors were more beautiful than any jewelry. The red and green were both iridescent, too vivid to seem real.

I have been having problems with my pond. It is in a sunny location and year after year the algae would bloom so much that it would obscure the pond making the fish difficult to see. I removed the fish and last year threw in several willow branches. Willow roots in water and by this spring the few branches had made a raft of carbon dioxide sucking roots, which gobbled up food for the algae. Also, a few trees planted themselves around the pond's edge, providing more shade. As a result, I have clear water in the pond now, and I was thrilled to see a family of frogs take up residence.