I'm too excited to sleep!!!

The photo above was taken for an ad for the store my daughter used to own. I didn't take it and I will have to find out the name of the person who did so I can give her credit. These are my grand-daughters Allena, Briana, and Lorin and the photo below is taken in my garden of their little sister Ella. I get to see Bri, Lorin, and Ella tomorrow. My other two are coming home with their dad in a couple of weeks. Did I already say how excited I am to see them.

I'm packing my bag tonight and leaving early in the morning to go to Boise. My daughter Season and her husband and my five grandchildren have been living in Maryland for the past three months. Beau had an internship to do there for his degree, so they decided it would be a great experience for the whole family to go. Season home schools, so there was nothing keeping them. Accept maybe a Gram and Gramps that have never been separated from the kids before. Anyway, Season flew home last night with three of the girls, so I have got to go. I can't wait to see them. They will be coming home with me to spend a few days. My daughter Ember is also coming home. They are all going to help me paint the gazebo and pergola. Aren't they great? I'll see all of you when I get back. I think I may have to take something tonight, because 'I'm too excited to sleep.'

Nesting...

I love the word nesting. The robins have been busy building nests in the garden. Some are just patching some of the existing ones from the previous few years. Very thrifty. I love to fluff and patch around my house in the spring also. I have so many projects I would like to do before the garden takes all my available time. There's some painting to do. Some building as well. We've decided to extend our pergola so we have more room for entertaining outside. Well, if truth be told, it's just one more place to decorate. And I do love to decorate. I'd decorate the inside of a birdhouse if I could fit through the hole. I love making things homey and pretty. My mother was a Nester. She could make any place lovely. Our home was always so inviting. I have such fond memories of the places we called home when I was growing up. We moved around quite often, but my mother made every place cozy even when she didn't have much to work with. She never had the attitude of just making do. She put a lot of work into keeping house and I'd like to think that rubbed off on me just a little. I'm a Nester, always fluffing and fussing around the house to make it the best it can be. Cozy and homey is my mantra. I have no desire to have a show house. Somebody else's idea of what my home should look like. I feel so much joy in making my house and garden a place my family loves to come to and spend time. Well friends, it's time to get back to fluffing and fussing. Maybe I'll even tackle that birdhouse sometime soon.

Morning mist and Mr. Darcy escapes!

The other morning when I got up and looked out my back door, I saw this mist rising from the earth, over my neighbors field. This field lies just behind a tiny pasture we have in the rear of our property. He plants it in barley every spring. I love to watch it from the time he seeds it to the time he harvests it. First, the little blades of grain appear and soon the whole field is the loveliest of green. It gets very tall and waves in the breeze. He has a pivot irrigation sprinkler on it, and when it comes near our property, I love the spray that reaches us when the wind blows. I go out when it's really warm and stand in the yard to feel the mist. The field then turns a lovely amber in the fall just before harvest. By the time he combines, the barley has turned a very light tan and has started to lay down because of the weight of the heads. I love to watch this process. This planting and harvesting. This picture of this early morning mist was an enchanting sight so early in the morning. The Earth is so alive and I'm grateful.

Now, for the second part of this post. Do you remember Mr. Darcy and Lizzy from a previous post? Well, I learned that you never take a birdcage outside to clean it, ever. Let me just say, that little bird is fast. Well as you know I live in the country, so he had a lot of room to spread out. First he landed on our tractor, then on the fence, then in the neighbors tree, then, and then, and then. I just kept trying to catch him, but to no avail. So I asked my neighbor if she had a net of some kind. She had a fishing net. The holes were a little big and this finch is very tiny. He finally flew across the road to where there is an empty river channel. I couldn't find him anywhere after that, so I figured he was gone forever. I went up and down the river with this fishing net. Well, this road is very busy with traffic and people seeing me walking by the river with this net must have been thinking, oh, poor June is losing it, there's no water in the river, let alone fish. I didn't know I was this attached to my Mr. Darcy. I haven't had him that long. I knew Lizzy was going to be really lonely until I could get her a new man. When I finally got back to the house, Hubs said, 'look out in that tree.' When I looked out the kitchen window, he was sitting in the tree just outside. Well, to make an already too long a story short, it took a little doing, but I finally caught him. He was so tuckered out, that he couldn't fly anymore. Now he is back home, snug in his cage with his Lizzie. And I learned that you never clean a cage full of birds outside.