Plain, honest and upright

The heat wave broke in the middle of the night and a lovely cool breeze greeted me through my window this morning.

When I came down to get my coffee, the thermometer we keep in the breakfast nook read 68 and I felt like I was in Maine again. Oh, happy day! With no humidity, it was even a good hair day, to boot.

I don’t get too many good hair days in the summer around here.

And it was a good day for sunflowers.

I wandered out to my husband’s garden early this evening while he and George were inside watching Jeopardy. The dog doesn’t watch as much as listen when we try to guess the answers.

I was careful where I stepped tonight. The garden is chock full this year of all sorts of growing things: watermelons, cantaloupes, peppers, tomatoes, corn, herbs, and heavens knows what else. When asked what the vines were that were trailing up the fence next to the garden gate, my husband told me he didn’t remember.

This should be fun!

He was very upset to see that something was eating his sunflowers ~ tearing them to shreds it seemed. He found that it was ants. Millions of ants.

I think he’s got that under control now, and these young sunflowers are doing fine.

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. ~Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers: A Discourse of Flowers

UPDATE: As I was writing this, my husband came in the house and gave me an earful. It seems that when I was out in the garden taking these photos tonight, I stepped on one of his little tiny watermelons. “No”, I told him. “I was really careful!”

Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence left at the scene of the crime says otherwise. I will try to be more careful. I told you that garden was chock full of stuff!

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .

All photos taken with a Nikon D80 and the Nikkor AF Micro 60 mm Macro lens.