Tippy canoe and river rats too

The Phactors used to canoe quite a bit, but in the past 15 years not so much largely because we no longer have a river and a canoe.  The two sort of went together.  Today was a pretty nice day  for mid-July here in the great Midwest, hot, but not too hot, pretty weather really, and friends who do have both a canoe (several actually) and a river invited us for a nice leisurely down stream paddle of about 3.5 hrs.  This time of year with the water near the minimum for canoeing you see mostly trees along this undeveloped river except for one blighted encampment with a classic redneck look about it.  What a great change of scenery.  Among the highlights was a bald eagle nest high in a sycamore tree, a grove/clone of paw-paw (quite uncommon here abouts), some muskrats swimming along, and a great blue heron rookery of about 20 nests high in a cottonwood tree over the river.  Although it seemed strange to see no turtles sunning anywhere.  It was great fun.

A Beautiful Day

Today is a beautiful summer day, an occurrence that has been in short supply this year.  Last night after being missed by the first round, a second set of thunderstorms delivered 1.75" of rain to our gardens, without damaging wind or hail, and this is the first time in over 2 months that our garden plants, those that aren't brown already, are looking well watered.  The down pour also filled the lily pond.  Presently, at about 1 pm it is pleasantly warm, breezy, and the cicadas are providing quite a chorus.  Ms. Phactor is out for a walk around the gardens with her kitty who has been cooped up during the stifling heat.  The last significant rainfall was 3 weeks ago, and for a week this rain will do, and either the drought will continue or not; long range forecasts are not optimistic.  As produce beggers, friends with some better garden fortunes gave us a bag full of oriental eggplants, and up the street a gardener/farmer was selling big, beautiful tomatoes for 25 cents each.  Not sure the Phactor can grow them that cheaply.  While a great help to gardeners, this rain won't help most of the maize farmers, but maybe the soybeans will recover.  For at least the next few days the oppressive heat will abate, and some optimism returns although this type of weather in this region could become common place due to global warming.  If this is a taste of the future, it's a bad vintage.  Still nothing like enjoying the present, sitting on your veranda (yes, wireless signal is strong enough!) and posting a light weight blog.