Good morning on another beautiful day in the garden!

Again it's very cool compared to the balance of the summer's weather! Temperature 9C, (about 50F), humidity says 100%; probably because the dewpoint is also 9C, so this morning it seems the dew is falling!
Barometer 102 and steady again today, winds out of the North at 4km/h

The birds put on a performance this morning, likely they enjoyed the dew! We have several broods of sparrows & goldfinches - born in the back birdhouses. Families of chicadees, cardinals, robins, woodpeckers, purple finches and house finches plus the odd morning dove all live in the immediate vicinity. Today I watched young sparrows as they were waking up to their day. Several young birds, about 12 or more, were fluffing up their feathers in the very tops of the birch trees - just where the rising sun was starting to reach the uppermost branches. It was fun to watch them as they appeared almost "frumpy" from their slumber and proceeded to primp themselves and smooth out their feathers and then they'd head out for a taller tree looking for breakfast!  Like a rowdy bunch of siblings they somersaulted around the cedars and the taller maple trees!

Picked a few tomatoes today and lots of basil, cilantro and parsley to go with them...h-m-m-m, DARN..., not quite enough to make salsa! My zuchinni have finally started to set up some nice looking squash and I should be able to start the first batch of baby dill pickles by the end of this week...if they get too big I'll just make relish or bread & butter pickles instead!

I've been working more on some background textural "stuff". Still very rudimentary...I'm using Paint to play around with some ideas...not sure if anything I do with Photoshop Elements will work here...time will tell - it's fun to experiment! Once I got the hang of where the artwork ends up and how it actually appears the possibilities became "virtually" limitless! I'm having fun with it!

Look out for grandmothers with first grandkids - wow...we can be something else! I work hard at avoiding the "baby" section of department stores, toy departments, scrapbooking goodies...eeeegad - I try to be practical...but... well, hey I had to do that when I raised my daughter - now I'd rather have some fun and buy the stuff I like...who cares if it's durable or on sale - But then I can do that - I'm a Grandmother and "we grannies rock on!"

Most people might not get such fun from something so simple, on the other hand that is a real loss for them. the simplest things in life are those we treasure the most! Just like simple food is often the tastiest..."simple pleasures are life's greatest treasures" printed on a coffee cup I have, used to belong to my late mother-in-law...I think it says it all!

Hope you've enjoyed meandering in the garden...lots more to come...my daughter has taken some beautiful close up photos of some flowers and insects...I hope to share those as soon as I can get them scanned and set up! More to follow as my learning curve is broad and long, like a great big smile! T Hee!

Life is our dance. Live simply, live well and laugh a lot! ;D

Cheryl