Summer will be over soon. I find it impossible to get good shots of butterflies. Can you spot the butterfly above? It moved just as I snapped the photo and the camera focused on the white flowers of the chives and the butterfly bush is out of focus. (The lavender and purple flowers are on the same butterfly bush, it is just that the lavender color flower is in strong hot Georgia sunlight!)
In this heat, it has been important for us to keep fresh water for the birds. These are just plastic dishes (they are really the bottoms to flower pots!) but the birds love them. The birds pictured here are brown thrashers and I have written about them before, the brown thrasher is the state bird of Georgia. The one on the right is a youngster, you can see the feathers are not the chestnut brown they will be as an adult. And look at the size! It is funny to see them bathe in this tiny dish!
The southern part of our county (where we live) is in an extreme drought. At my Dad's house, he has had a lot more rain! They will get downpours and then, the sun will come out and you would never know it had rained! (Still hot though!)
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You know my Dad cut some of these sunflower seed heads for me to take home for my birds!
Besides walking up Stone Mountain, we also like to walk on the trails beside Stone Mountain Lake. The shade is most welcome.
We also do some hikes on the trails at Panola Mountain and we aim for the shady areas. We found someone else who enjoyed it too and he was taking it very easy!
Not forgetting the wonderful Arabia Mountain, of course! I never tire of it!
I am looking forward to summer arriving. We have had a cold winter this year. They reckon it was the coldest in 22 years brrrr
ReplyDeleteOh, here I am wishing for cooler weather and you have had enough of it, haven't you?! I will wish you happy, warm days for your summer!
DeleteI'm ready for Fall but Farmer's Almanac is predicting a very bad Winter for us so I guess I just enjoy this heat while I can! My Mom and Sister are visiting my brothers in Georgia this week. Hope they don't melt! Have a good week!
ReplyDeleteOh, I hope your winter won't be too bad in your part of the country! I hope your mother and sister have a great time on their visit to Georgia! My advice, get out early in the morning and once the morning is gone, crank up that AC!!
DeleteWe are very much looking forward to cooler weather, although we've had quite enough rain for the moment thankyouverymuch.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, the photos of the flooding from Louisiana, such a tragedy. I am so sorry for all that rain for you. It seems like the rain is either too much (way too much) or too little.
DeleteI will wish for you a wonderfully, dry Autumn. xx
Except for about a week we have had a fairly ordinary summer as far as heat. Our precipitation has been good. I guess we have been lucky.
ReplyDeleteYou have been lucky! You just can't imagine how brutal it has been, I think I heard it was 71 days with temps over 90 degrees. HOT!
DeleteOurs has been a typical English summer I'd say. That means sunshine and showers but neither too extreme. I've been lucky and managed to time my leave for the weeks when it's been mostly sunny and it's shining as we speak :) You can show us as many sunflowers as you like - I love them! xx
ReplyDeleteAh, England in the summer with the long days and beautiful flowers in the garden! Happy you like sunflowers too! I liked this photo, the flower seems to have an arm out, as if to say, "Ta-Da"! xx
DeleteDear Kay, your summer looks good, but I do realize there are problems with either draught or floods in several places in the US. Seems there is either one or the other of the opposite end of the weather scale!
ReplyDeleteMy summer has been really good - nice sunny days and mild evenings, fun-filled weekends either at my place or at O.K.'s, with many walks, some outings on bikes (yes! me! on a bike again!) and swimming in a lake, birthday parties to attend, cocktails to drink and ice creams to eat :-)))
What a wonderful summary of your summery summer! (I like a play on words, don't you?)
DeleteAll that you described AND your great trip to Yorkshire!
Happy that you seem so happy these days! :-)
Yes! I see the butterfly, and well-caught too. I have tried but never succeeded in doing that. We have been enjoying a very mild winter, but I am concerned this will indicate another very hot summer to follow. So pleased to be going to the Northern Hemisphere next week, where it should be heading into Autumn. PS I love a sunflower too.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how hard I try to take photos of butterflies and birds! I do better with flowers, they don't fly away from me! LOL!
DeleteWishing you a great trip to London! You should watch the movie that was filmed in the British Museum, it was "Night At The Museum, Secret of The Tomb", and it is a very funny but you will recognize things from the Museum!
And I love you love the sunflower too! x
I did see the butterfly. My summer hasn't been too exciting, since we moved this past December from the countryside to the city. I've spent most of my time unpacking and setting the house up. Can you believe I still have boxes to unpack!
ReplyDeleteOh bless you, it is so hard to move, I most certainly do believe you have boxes to unpack! Take your time, I say, those boxes aren't going anywhere! :-)
DeleteLovely. I would be in heaven in a sunflower farm!!!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteLovely. I would be in heaven in a sunflower farm!!!! ;-)
ReplyDeleteMy Dad planted a whole acre of sunflowers! They didn't grow very tall because of lack of rain in the Spring, but they were lovely! :-)
Deleteohhhh, desperately looking forward to our not-as-hot days here in Tampa
ReplyDeleteMy friend, you understand where I am coming from!
DeleteYes! I see the butterfly. I find it hard to photograph them too☺ ♥
ReplyDeleteNice photos ♥
summerdaisy.cottage.blogspot.com
Hello Summer!
DeleteThe sideways butterfly! HA! My husband takes most of the photos on this blog. When you see one out of focus, it is usually mine!
Still too hot here, 67 days in a row of 90ยช weather, They keep promising us a cool down, but it hasn't come yet. My garden is a mess. Longing for autumn.
ReplyDeleteLonging for autumn, that should have been the title of this post! :-)
DeleteSounds like my sister in Australia who also looks forward to cooler days in autumn and some rain to save her garden. Like the tortoise... or Turtle? I used to have one as a pet but it knew more tricks than Houdini for escaping out the garden. Once had to walk 5 miles to get it back after it had been gone all summer. It had our phone number on the shell as it kept disappearing.(think someone stole it that time and put it on a bus for a laugh)
ReplyDeleteLove sunflowers and walking under dappled light and shade in hot weather.
That is an Eastern Box turtle and it is always a welcome sight to see on the wooded trails here! Glad you got your turtle back. You need to do a post about turtles!
DeleteDappled light on a trail also looks very pretty, it is not easy to photograph but Richard always gets it just right!
I'd be getting weary of unbroken hot weather too (not that we have had much of that here in England) but your pictures were lovely. That sunflower really must be a perfect specimen, wonderful! And how lovely that glittering water is.... sigh.... so summery indeed. Here in England we are starting to see signs of autumn. For me and several people I know, the Brexit vote was such a shock that it wiped out quite a bit of the summer (it happened June 23). That might sound strange but several other people have commented that to me. So with that and the weather the summer seems to have fled quicker than usual. I'm hoping we'll have a beautiful autumn now.
ReplyDeleteI am glad you noticed the sun sparkling on the water, I love how Richard captured that!
DeleteOh dear, I think you may be right. I do remember many of the British blog writers being very shocked over the vote. I am wishing a beautiful autumn for you, Jenny Woolf!
Your sunflower is beautiful....if only life was always like that...the feelings sunflowers portray ...inspire.
ReplyDeleteSpring commences here on Thursday...too soon...I want more of our winter!! The summer heat will be upon us once again before we know it...swelter time! I love our winters...it never gets very cold. They year is flying by all too quickly for my liking. :)
We usually have mild winters and I do enjoy the mild ones!
DeleteMy heart rejoices when I look into the heart of a sunflower!
Your pictures are so wonderful. I love that sunflower. It is so perfect, it doesn't look real.
ReplyDeleteI know but it was real and it was in my Dad's sunflower field just waiting for me!!
DeleteGosh - another lovely post, Kay, but the real highlight for me was the tortoise. I would love to see a tortoise in the wild.
ReplyDeleteHey John! So happy you liked him (her?). Not sure which one, but you can tell apparently by the shell if you turn them over, one of them is more concave than the other, I think the female. It is an Eastern box turtle and it is a joy to find one when you are walking on a wooded trail!
DeleteOh me, I thought about this on my way to work. It is the male box turtle that the bottom of shell is concave, the female's is flat on the bottom. Hey, I must not give out false turtle info!
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DeleteLucky you to have Brown Thrashers bathing in your yard. I love those gangly looking birds. Our summer has been pretty bad with far higher than normal temperatures accompanied with high humidity. We're really looking forward to Autumn. Nice photographs
ReplyDeleteI have read that brown thrashers are secretive and don't often visit decks or patios. Glad our brown thrashers didn't read this! It's funny, a brown thrasher will take a sunflower seed and go to the side and BASH its big bill down upon the seed, cracking open the seed! WE love to watch them do this!
DeleteIn North Carolina, you know what I mean about hot!
Thanks for your visit, NC Mountain Woman! :-)
Yes - wish it would cool off a little.
ReplyDeleteToday, it was a bit breezy and I think the high was in the high 80s's, and for me, even that little bit was a relief!!
DeleteGreat pictures!
ReplyDeleteThe birds in the bath is a great pic!
Thanks! You know Richard took the birds in the bath photo!
DeleteI do love your nature photos and think they are great! My summer has sometimes been too warm but many great things have been happening. I feel truly blessed, even with some problems to struggle with. Perhaps we always need some difficulties to keep us humble and striving.
ReplyDeleteHumble and striving, that's me! Ha!
DeleteI have not spent as much time in nature as I would like this summer and I think I need it for my peace of mind!
Those birds are just precious. We've tried birdbaths over the years but no one ever came. It is probably because there is a stream in the pasture and there are springs up in our woods so they don't really need to come into the yard for their water. But I do so love to see them in other people's pictures. There is drought in some parts of our state, but we've been lucky with rain. Though it has been hotter than usual.
ReplyDeleteWe do believe that our birds rely on the water that we put out, we have done so for years and we keep it fresh and the birds must know this! During times of drought, they take so many baths that the dishes will be almost empty by late afternoon! We are still hopeful for rain. Even with the rain from this hurricane, it will most likely miss us.
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