A Good Day

School got out last week.  I felt like I’ve been in a flurry of activity every day since.  Today was the first day I really felt like I was out for summer break.  With the exception of my older daughter going to driving school (at her high school), I didn’t have to go anywhere.  Today, I did summery things!

I worked in my garden, which looked so cheerful in the morning summer sunshine:

Everything seems healthy and happily growing.  I added tomato cages to the sprawling vines today. I also noticed my hydrangea is starting to bloom:

 

 I am delighted with all of the buds it has this year.  I have often lamented my lack of luck with hydrangea.  I don’t remember this hydrangea always being pink either; I know that soil pH can affect their color, but I haven’t moved this plant in probably 10 years. It has never been a great bloomer for me, so maybe I just don’t remember!  Lots of buds still to come:

After the garden I picked up the yard for lawn mowing.  I got to use a little chain saw to chop up a large branch that had fallen into the yard – that was kind of cool!  After mowing the lawn, I vacuumed the pool.  It looked nice and sparkly.  I should’ve taken a picture.

My bird feeder has been extremely active since I refilled it a couple days ago.  I also learned today that my squirrel-proof feeder is no longer squirrel-proof:

Industrious little thing, huh?  I couldn’t understand just how the squirrels were getting at the seed.  The feeder is set up so that if something heavier than birds lands on the feeder, that wire covering with the perches on it slides down and covers the opening to the seed.  I went out to investigate.  One of the openings had the plastic chewed away so that the opening was not completely covered when it slides down!  That is the opening our little friend here is jamming his or her head into!  The squirrels broke the other feeder I had put up for them in a near-by tree in the hopes of keeping them away from the bird feeder, so I’m not sure what I’ll do next.

At the end of my busy day, I landed in my second-favorite summer place – my deck with a good book (first favorite would be the beach, but that is a few hours drive away).  And my little hummingbird took what seems to be one of his favorite places these days too:

That is a skinny little branch at the top of a small tree at the side of my property.  I look for him there now when I am outside in the evening.  I thought this made for a pretty cool shot of a hummingbird at rest; not a sight you see all that often.

Let me know about a good summer day for you in the comments if you’d like!  June Photo Hunt re-cap coming soon – I’m waiting on a couple folks taking advantage of the extension.  In the meantime, there are plenty of links to check out in the comment section of that post, so please go check out the submissions when you have the chance and leave them some love in their own comment sections.