We only had sprinkles. Nothing to amount to "rain." We took a walk after dinner and enjoyed the relatively cool temp. I went out to get the newspaper and the sky to the north is reddish pink. Made me think of the old saying, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning! Maybe we'll still get a little rain.
Did you get to see Stevie

We had a nice rain on Friday night. We lost power for about 5 hours, I got excited about starting to dig up weeds and moving plants the next day but the ground was still quite dry

That sounds great Anna, except for the power outage. I'm on my way out to re-pot some more plants I've neglected due to the intense heat.

We didn't have any real "rain" either...had a very light drizzly stuff that really wasn't even measurable. Maybe something will stir a t-storm up here before this is gone. Had to hand-water yesterday. My Two-tailed Tiger Swallowtails are emerging from their chrysalises now. I let one go yesterday and there's one that emerged this morning also. Fall...I do like the sound of that word! Officially it starts Friday.
Added: make that two more butterflies emerged...one just out!

I think about that pretty much every time I see a sunset! We're hoping for rain today...

And YES, Stevie is beyond compare. That is the first time we've EVER stayed for the entire set at the end of the day of ACL. He was incredible. I've never seen the entire audience enjoying a show that much.

I just came in to cool off, but I'm not complaining. Just loved being out and raking up all the dead stuff. Fertilized a bit and set out some ant bait. On my way back out to do some trimming. DH is busy on computer, so I don't feel guilty staying outside.

Butterflies at your fingertips! Wow, that would be rewarding to see.

We could hear the bands at our house at 6:30 last night! Couldn't tell what they were playing, but knew it was from ACL. Would love to go one of these days. (And I'm one of those people that admits to liking Coldplay ). DH has a recessive music gene...doesn't even have the radio on in the car. DD & SIL took us to the Neville Bros concert at the Backyard for my birthday one year. We had seats really close and it was great! DH just sat there and looked at his watch and then at us! I don't know how he got thru college. It was worse when they took us to hear the Gypsy Kings (we had to stand thru that one). He'll never go again, I know!

lol Sandi! Thankfully DH appreciates music as much as I do and we share interest in a lot of the same genres. Road trips really aren't so bad with him.

...and we are totally opposite, but in a good way.

Did you know the state flower of Texas could have been the cotton boll or the prickly pear cactus bloom instead of the bluebonnet? In 1901, when the Texas legislators were deciding which of the three would become the state flower, the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Texas Chapter (whew) lobbied for the bluebonnet. They carried a Mode Walker bluebonnet painting to the Capitol along with small vases of bluebonnets which they presented to the legislators...and the rest is history!

Our September garden club program was to be Celebrating the Bluebonnet, and our club program chairman sent me a photo of the Walker painting to include in the newsletter. I told her I couldn’t use it without permission (she had copied it from a Houston newspaper). The original painting hangs in the Neill-Cochran House Museum here in Austin. I offered to call and ask if they had a photo we could use for the newsletter. The director said she’d e-mail a copy of the museum’s post card, but after a little conversation, asked we would like for her to take the painting to our meeting. Of course, I told her!

Last night she came to our meeting and not only brought the painting, but gave us the history of the acquisition of the painting and the museum (owner didn’t want it to become a parking lot or a frat house!), the bluebonnets and the Colonial Dames, and so much more. It was a very interesting presentation. The painting was beautiful, and the colors were so much more vivid than in the e-mailed version.

We also had a speaker from Wildseed Farms that demonstrated how to plant the bluebonnet seeds we had purchased in bulk for the club.

And cake...we had lots of cake!

Oh HECK!!! I forgot that was last night!!! BUMMER...I would have loved to here the speakers!

Of course, on the downside, DH is kind of needing some support...he was laid off on Wednesday...

That's terrible, I'm so sorry....

SO sorry! All this budget-paring going on this year...it's a darn shame!

I'm so sorry, Carey!

He's taking it all in stride. He's wanted to leave there for a while, but hasn't really looked all that actively. There are several openings he's already talking to people about. His old coworkers and friends are helping in whatever they can. We have some plans in the works so we'll see how it goes.

Well that's good. I sure hope you don't have to move.
I'm outside re-potting stuff and it's still cool. Our back yard still looks like a war zone. I used the blower from the patio, out to the fence. Looked a little better. After all the things that croaked in the heat, I'm surprised that the plumerias are starting to bloom again. And I found tiny buds on the brugs today. I haven't fertilized much because I didn't want anything to grow too much and then need more water. I'm pleasantly surprised, but know that I only have about 6 weeks to enjoy it. Then it'll be time to store it all away for winter.

This is the summer that refuses to end. Maybe it'll be 10 weeks before you need to worry about putting things away!

At lake to water.neighbor s fig tree has about ten monarchs resting.
Wonder if they're on the migration?

Some of those should be migrating to Mexico. A few in the fall coming south will mate, lay eggs in Texas areas and hopefully produce another generation. Those don't migrate to Mexico.

These are big! We came up last night inthunderstorm, but little rain. Looked like it would rain this morning, but just dark clouds and lightning. I was thinking the cooler weather was signaling the monarchs to start theirmigration.

Sandi, we got about 5 inches of rain from the storms this afternoon!!! You know, every five inches there's a raindrop. Ugh.