In Full Swing

Summer is in full swing, heat, humidity, thunderstorms and a lot of lake activity for the family. The dogs are coping well, still digging deeper hideouts. They love the visitors who come up the driveway. The garden and the wild berries are loving the growing conditions, zucchini very early, even ripe blackberries already
(tons of them). The choke cherry trees are dripping with fruit.

Midsummer Heat

The dogs and the humans are finding a way to cope with the heat and humidity, but it is unrelenting this summer. Josie and Ruthie win the 'best excavator' award with their crater in their pen. Nighttime brings calm as the sun retreats and there's some relief. We keep adding shade tarps (even shower curtains). We spray the pens
to chase away flies, we treat them for flies and give them garlic sausage as a natural repellent. The pools and water buckets are cleaned and scrubbed each day so they'll drink fresh cold water.
Our day starts earlier so the dogs can get their free runs and walks before the hottest part of the day.
The grass and the gardens are growing faster than ever in this combo of heat/rain/humidity. Today we're craving rain again even though we've had deluges.
The wildlife come out of the shady woods to wander at dusk. We like seeing two does
with fawns, one set of twins, one single fawn.

Pizza

We took a six dog walk yesterday and they found a piece of pizza left on the trail.
Some critter must have been garbage digging elsewhere as we haven't recently had pizza here. Of course, the dogs gobbled it up.



More cat tracks too, but possibly barn cat tracks.

Photos: Frita, Medio and
Buddy with pizza; Lillen, Frita, Buddy, Skinny, Sierra and Medio on the six dog walk.

The Bee, The Bear and the Full Moon

Last night the dogs howled their alarm at a black bear. I stepped out to see it and to shoo it away and a bee stung me inside my ear. The full moon was shining down, beautifully... the time of high jinx. The bear was unmoved by any noise we made, simply foraging his way along. Couldn't get a great photo but looks to be midsized.

Bear in the Blueberries

The field camera caught these two photos in the ripe blueberries.

Rains bring Rainbows and Berries

And more mowing. Rain, rain, mow, mow. We are trailwalking every day but soon we need to get out there, too, to mow.

The blueberries are party edible and same with the raspberries. My young granddaughter took a trail walk with her Mama and me yesterday, testing the berries.
The wildlife will have a nice feast. The apples are early, too.

More thunder yesterday but not too much reaction from the dogs. We had so much rain it filled the feed pails (five gallon).

Cabin has new floor

We had to go away for a few days for new flooring to be installed. Skinny and Sierra went with me to the cottage. We are all happy to be back home to the routines. It was very hot/humid/rainy while we were at the lake, so the dogs were mostly inside with fans running, but they did enjoy their morning/evening walks.
We had a small dog visitor which enchanted both Skinny and Sierra.