WHEW. It’s hot out there. And no rain. Weird for us. In fact, I had to turn on the sprinkler for the first time in a couple of years. My bee balm was fading and looking pretty sad. Unlike Colorado, most people do not have underground sprinkler systems because it rains so much. We depend on the rain to keep our yards looking good.

Our day was pretty low key compared to yesterday with guests. We washed Mia very early and took a short drive. We were home by noon. The afternoon was spent around the pool. Dinner was a new recipe on the grill which neither one of us cared for all that much. Oh well.

Early evening found us around the pool again. The pool is 82 degrees and feels like bath water. We’ve seen a few bats this year, not as many as in years past, but at least it’s good to see a few.

Here is as strange photo taken at a low exposure as Rick swam in front of me.

Poolside candles reflected in the water.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

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!

Can you find the bee in each photo?  Some are obvious of course, but a few are not.

The bees were hanging out in this clump of cherry trees on the grounds of Skylands Botanical Garden yesterday.

They were all buzzing around my head and would not leave me alone until I promised to feature them on my blog. Bees must be appeased, you know.

P.S. I certainly hope you are not tired of springy photos just yet. I have more ...

Here is a small taste of some things in bloom around my town right now.

This beautiful dogwood tree in front of the town hall.

A weeping cherry that is so large you can’t see the house behind it! I love this tree.

Can you see that someone tied lavender ribbons to its branches? Probably for Easter. The year we moved here it was Easter weekend and they had little eggs tied tied to its branches.

Not sure what this is, but it’s a miniature waterfall of white blooms. Maybe a mini weeping cherry in white?

I had to include this creepy sign for the florist. What do you think of it? I guess it’s been a landmark for years, only Kim tells me that it used to look even more like Michael Jackson than it does now!

I stopped by the local nursery to snap some pics of what they have out now. An explosion of color! (The daffodils in my header were taken here.)

I don’t know if it’s my over active imagination or what, but these daffodils look to me like they are trying to look around in every direction and saying ... hellloooo!

And last, but not least, this sleepy bee found a great napping spot. At first I thought he was dead but when I stroked him with my finger he moved his legs a little bit. Lazy spring bee!

They call us the Garden State for a reason!