It was lovely this morning. High humidity—100%—coupled with a quite a bit of rain in the evening last night created wonderful misty sunbeams throughout my yard as the sun rose through the trees and garden. I tried to capture its beauty.

To me it looks like this tree is doing its “Oh what a beautiful morning” salutation dance amongst the bee balm!

A spider decided it was a fine morning to spin a web on the railing around the pool. He picked a lovely spot by the day lilies.

Grab a cool one and sit down with me for a few minutes. Yes, I’m still here in case you were wondering. A few people have commented to me on my lack of blogging lately, so somebody out there missed me! Nothing wrong, just going through a phase where I have nothing to say. I’ve started several blog posts that never materialized. Poof! They were gone before they really ever began.

Summer has finally kicked in here I think. We’ve had lovely warm weather, some with humidity and some without. A few rain storms—not a lot—but enough to keep everything watered without dragging out the hose.

Every spare moment we had this weekend was spent in or around the pool. It’s back up to 78 degrees now, so pretty comfortable. I had my first skinny-dip of the year on Sunday night. It felt good.

When it’s hot our favorite drink around the pool are Beergaritas. You have to be careful because they can sneak up on you. They taste so good going down it’s scary. And I don’t even like beer all that much. These are the exception.

They might make you do silly things like photograph your out of proportion shadow on the bottom of the pool.

Did you know you could float your drink in the water to keep it cool?

There really is nothing quite so relaxing as floating around in the pool listening to Bossa ‘n Stones.

The day lilies around the pool are in bloom right now. Just beautiful. The ferns make a great backdrop for them.

The bee balm makes a pretty sea of red firework-like blooms.

We’ve had a few visitors to the yard. Some welcome ...

... some not so welcome.

He’s just a harmless baby garter snake but I really didn’t want him in my pool so I graciously fished him (or is that snaked? him) out.

So those are just a few of the things I have to share today. Hopefully this will jump start me back to blogging again!

Not much to say but I wanted to document the first Lynne Swim of the season. Today. Outside air temp around 81F degrees under sun-behind-clouds-sun-out from behind-clouds weather. Humidity around 77%. Water temp in the pool, fighting to hold at 70F.  I struggled with getting in. First I sat on the edge and put my legs in about halfway up to my knee. After I felt comfortable I decided to just slide off the edge of the waist-deep (for me) part of the pool. After a few gasps at the cold water hitting me mid-body it didn’t feel too bad. I walked around acclimating myself to the cool water.

I stood at the edge of the drop-off where it goes from waist deep to 9 feet for a long time. The sun taunted me by dipping in and out of clouds. When the sun was out it felt great and I was ready to take the plunge. Then the sun went behind a huge cloud and I wasn’t so ready anymore. Finally I had a firm talk (out loud) with myself. Just do it Lynne. Just do it. So I did.

It was cold, but at the same time refreshing. I did a few laps. Rick watched from the cabana.

I now have a “first.” Usually Rick is the first one to swim but he was not willing today. I splashed around for quite a while before he dipped the first half of his body in only waist deep. And no further did he go.

Ah, I will relish in my “firstness” for a while. It felt great.

The big double-flowered cherry tree in neighbor Teri’s yard at the beginning of our street is now in full glorious bloom. I walked down the other day to get some photos of it.

On the way I found these two blooming trees growing wild in the woods. The white one is dogwood, but not sure what the pink blooming one is. It’s not obvious since it’s in a tangle with other trees.

Here is the tree from a distance. See how green everything is becoming?

I saw this nest tucked into the branches and thought it looked like a lovely place to build a home. Probably a robin.

I love the double flowers, whether lit by the sun or not.

The other day around 7:00 p.m. I was passing through the sun room and looked out the windows like I probably do about 50 times a day. I knew Alex and Bella were outside enjoying the cool spring evening, so when I saw two black objects down in the woodsy skunk cabbage part of our yard I wasn’t too surprised. I did wonder however what they were doing because they really don’t go down there that much. The very next minute my brain finally went CLICK. I looked on the deck and sure enough, there were Alex and Bella just laying there. The black objects were not my dogs! They were bears; the first ones of the season.

When my brain finally registered the fact that they were bears I couldn’t help but wonder why the dogs weren’t barking? Surely they saw them/heard them and Bella notices everything that even comes close to her yard. Yet there they laid, looking, but not making a sound. I could see now that the bears were not in fact in the yard but right on the other side of our chain link fence that borders the woods. A mother and two cubs. Big cubs for this early in the year. I quietly called the dogs inside and ran to put the zoom lens on the camera.

Here is what they looked like from the back deck where the dogs were laying.

I walked down into the yard to get closer, but not too much closer. After all, I don’t know this bear. Shooting through a chain link fence is not the best and it was getting dark but you get the idea. Here is the mother bear.

There were having a delightful meal of fresh skunk cabbage, ripping off huge leaves and munching them down like crazy.

She sees me!

I walked back up the house to continue watching them. Within a few minutes of getting back in the house I noticed that one of the cubs had come over the fence and was now technically in my yard. (There is a spot in the fencing that sags from so many bears going over it!) Back down in the yard I went with the camera. He heard the clicks of the camera before he realized I was there. He was very curious about what I was doing.

His sibling is still on the other side of the fence and curious too.

how’d he get over there????? maybe I should try ...

All too soon they had their fill of cabbage and moved on. It was nice to see them! I hope they come back soon.