Roadside Flowers

I wonder how many will zip by these lovely periwinkle blue chicory flowers growing alongside our back country road without even noticing them?  Now found along many roadsides, fields, and city lots in the United States, chicory was initially introduced from Eurasia.  It's most common in areas that receive ample rain.  The roots of this wildflower can be ground and roasted and substituted for coffee.

On closer inspection, the dainty flowers are simply beautiful! 

Inspiration

The natural world offers so much beauty.  Its various moods can match or challenge our own. The feeling of connection to all one feels when immersed in the outdoors can help us center ourselves and feel grounded.  There are so many lovely passages written to honor our connection with nature.  I came across the following words which are not only beautiful but inspirational ... enjoy!

"The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air, the fragrance of the grass speaks to me.  The summit, the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea speaks to me.  The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning dewdrop on the flower speaks to me.  The strength of fire, the taste of salmon, the trail of the sun, and the life that never goes away, they speak to me,  and my heart soars."

 ~ Chief Dan George, a Canadian Indian

What About Love?

Every once in a while, we all come across someone elses words which are well worth pondering further on our own.  I came across such a passage today when browsing through an old literary magazine. I found these words to be quite thought provoking and thought you might like to ponder on them, too ~

"In our society, we've become myopic and obsessive with one particular kind of love: dyadic love, which takes the form of romance, sex, marriage.  As a result we end up asking all the wrong questions.  Books about relationships talk about how to "get" the love you need, how to "keep" love, and so on.  But the right question to ask is, "How do I become a more loving human being?"  When you ask that question it changes the way you think about pursuing love, making it much more complex."

    ~ Sam Keene

There truly is much depth and beauty to be found and shared in romance, sex, and marriage with a loving and devoted partner, but all the above is all the better if one considers and puts into practice how to become a more loving human being on a continual, ever evolving basis.  If you've found the love of your life, your soul mate, and best friend, giving your relationship the best of yourself helps love grow and keeps it and vital and alive.  Giving the world your most loving self makes the world a little brighter and gentler for everyone ... we can plant seeds of love everyday.

And Another ...

The butterflies just keep arriving.  This morning this amazing zebra swallowtail with extremely long tails arrived at our garden and sampled the nectar of the coneflowers, black-eyed-susans and zinnias.  We were enchanted!

Another Visitor

The butterflies are starting to arrive.  Today, this eastern tiger swallowtail (missing one tail!) came to sample the sweet nectar of the garden coneflowers.  These flowers really do have a heavenly scent.  I cut a couple of the stragglers and put them in a vase to bring a little of the outdoors in and was surprised to find how strongly scented these pretty pink flowers are.  I'm glad they are hearty, too, as we've still been experiencing hot, dry weather and expect it to remain this way the rest of the week.  I've planted lots of cone flowers and black-eyed susans, not only because they are native plants and I find them very pretty, but because they are drought tolerant and fairly deer resistant, too.  For our area, those features are important ones for a thriving garden.

WOW ~ Weekend of Wildlife

This weekend has been an exceptional one for wildlife sightings. This afternoon, we discovered the luna moth above at rest on our front porch.  Since childhood when I saw my first one, the luna moth has been a big favorite.  The gorgeous lime colored wings with yellow and tan eye spots and the fuzzy body with large antennae make this moth a simply beautiful one to behold. These days it's rare to come across the luna moth.  I hadn't seen one for years so was very excited to find this lovely luna napping under the porch railing!

Welcome to the World

Kevin captured another special wildlife moment today when he took this photo of a mother deer with her spotted fawn nibbling on greens in the middle of our driveway.  The little fawn stuck right close to her mom.  After eating, they rested in the woods behind our cabin, giving us precious time to admire the new baby from our back window.  We hope to see more of the fawn as she grows!

Garden Visitor

Dark Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

This has been the summer of the dragonfly.  We've had more of these elegant winged, combat fliers around our little pond than ever seen at one time.  I've been wondering where all the large butterflies have been.  We've seen lots of the tiny cabbage whites sprinkling the woods and gardens with their delicate pale creamy color, but very few of the big swallowtails that usually abound in our area and frequent our garden.  This morning, this beautiful dark swallowtail with iridescent, upper blue wings alighted on our coneflowers ~ a very welcome visitor!  She was a bit skittish, but stayed around long enough for me to get the photograph above to share.  



Coming Along

Despite super hot, dry days with temps up in the 90s, the veggies are hanging in there and going strong.  As a novice gardener, I'm always thrilled when my plants start producing healthy, edible fruits.  Above is a jalapeno pepper ripe with two peppers and more on the way.

After I watered this California Wonder pepper today, it attracted a thirsty, little friend.  This pepper's almost ready for picking!

I thought I'd chosen a beef steak tomato plant at the nursery, so you can imagine my surprise to find these tiny cherry tomatoes growing on my potted tomato plant!  Just as well, I love the little ones, too.  They're great to pop in your mouth right off the vine ~ like tasting a little bit of sunshine :)

Up, Up & Away

This spring, our resident phoebes laid two sets of eggs, one early in the spring and one later in the season.  They'd built a compact nest of grass and moss on the rafters of our front porch, right over our grill.  Hot dogs and hamburgers were on hold until both broods were successfully reared and on their way.  After their tawny speckled eggs hatched, the parents diligently fed their young taking turns bringing grubs to the hungry, wide eyed babies.  At night, the fuzzy, little birds slept peacefully, cuddled up with one another in their cozy nest.  We often could make out a beak or two sticking up above the front curve of the nest above us.

Just the other day, Kevin and I got to see the last two baby birds fly away from the nest.  Kevin captured the photograph above before the last chick took wing.  It felt so amazing to see all of the babies grow up healthy and strong and fly off to their freedom.  And, they chose July 3rd to make their final leaps, so we could still enjoy grilled hot dogs for the Fourth of July!