Summertime and the living is easy-- well maybe not

This will likely sound silly but this is the time of the year I start thinking summer is going too fast. I know it barely began, but I look forward to these months the whole rest of the year. They last such a short time-- or so it seems at times.

Summer has been good to me so far. The weather is delightful, the nights still cool enough to sleep. My flowers are lush. The garden is starting to grow. I have always known how lucky I am to be living where I am close to nature and the animals on the farm. I get home from a trip somewhere, step out of the car with the creek below the house and feel like I live in a vacation-- if you ignore changing irrigation pipes, feeding sheep, unloading purchased hay, cutting thistles, and checking fences. This year I am again adding carrying squirrels to the back in the live trap.

We took back two and with the second I was thrilled to see a rabbit back there. We have had wild turkeys, pheasants, that runaway peacock, raccoons, beaver, but this is the first time I have seen a rabbit on the property. I wished I had my camera. Actually I wished I did for the little squirrel too-- by the time I was half way back. I wasn't about to turn around, but it had such a beautiful coat.

We canoed with our son, daughter by marriage, and their two kids one week-end at a small lake on the coast. We have another trip planned with the whole family for later in July. I am still hoping to get to Montana but time will tell on that one.

July 3rd we had a wonderful hiking trip with Parapluie and her husband. That trip was what will come in the next blog with photos. It's another of those times where I must have had several hundred and have to figure out how to winnow it down.
All photos are all from the week-end we canoed. Because I don't generally use photos of the kids, their partners, or my 4 grandchildren to protect their privacy; but because they are not identifiable, this is a rare exception. For me, it says it all. The boys had great fun canoeing and grandma very much enjoyed being able to share it with them. We took two canoes for the six of us. This one is theirs.