Deep into summer, with overheated days and more ahead, wildflowers of the season, like Queen Anne's lace, are in their glory, blooming happily. Vegetation on the forest floor is thriving, even while we've had a paucity of rain this July. We've never seen thistles of such gigantic proportions before, they're just enormous, the plants growing five feet tall, and the thistle flowers beginning to bloom their bright, deep purple.

Venturing out in the early morning, sometimes the sun is absolutely blinding in its intensity, glowing behind and above the forest canopy, sending its warm fingers of light whenever it can penetrate the summer thicket of foliage.

Yesterday morning Jackie and Jillie came across a few friends. Four-month-old Nova, the white German Shepherd, races over when he hear/smells their presence from a distance, long before his human knows that we're nearby, and Nova, in an excess of emotion, squeals his happiness at seeing us (or rather our two little black urchins). Nova's predecessor, Lily, whom he resembles uncannily, had a special relationship with Jackie and Jillie and they with her.

With Nova this time was a middling-sized Portuguese water dog, another puppy not yet a year old, and whom we hadn't seen for a while, nor did we recognize him as a result of having seen him only previously with long, fluffy hair flapping wildly about him. He has since had quite the hair trimming.

And so our morning walk along the woodland trails went yesterday, with pleasant occasional company, and the opportunity once again to look about us at the landscape, the incomparable beauty of which we will never feel we've seen enough of.

Different story this morning; it's incredibly cool, with a sharp, blustery wind hurling rain against the windows of the house, and a draft emphatic enough through the front windows of the house to slam shut bedroom doors and startle us all in the process.