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HAVE YOU SEEN THE MOON LATELY? It is so round and luminous and filled with such beauty, majestically traversing the night sky, it makes me want to weep.





You may wish to "click" on this to enhance the viewing; even then, sadly, I've made a pathetic attempt to grab hold of a spectacle of such magnitude, I'm afraid I've over-reached.
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I KNOW THAT EVERY DAY IS A GIFT. But today...ahh...the extra-special wrappings! Today came presented with a fabulous sheen of clear, sparkling sunlight and a pretty little bow of gentle breezes. When I went to the mailbox to post a bill payment, I was only outdoors for a minute or two, but picked up an infusion of happy-to-be-alive that had slipped directly from the gift package.

An hour or so later I took a little trip through the countryside to collect some curtains that a good seamstress and good friend (how lucky is that?) had sewn for me. Way out in the boonies is where this friend lives...fortunately for me, on this day of perfect weather (and I definitely stand by that classification.)


When I thought to record some of the idyllic pastoral scenes for you, it was difficult not to brake every time I rounded another curve or topped another hill (and believe me, this rural section of the country is quite well-supplied with earth swellings of various sizes.)









Because of which, curves are plentiful. And caused me some consternation when I saw a strange-looking obstacle in the road directly ahead of me. As I was thinking of how to maneuver around this odd contraption, I crested the hill and saw the road curve sharply to the left--with mailboxes on the right.

Did I learn anything? Just a little further on I was fooled again--amazing how that tree ahead is practically growing out of the road!

























I passed a wise person making hay,

and some other creatures who may also be wise, eating hay while the sun shone.


Mostly it was just miles of this--the green, the white and the blue.


Some spots were heavy on the green,

others had an emphasis on the white.



Most views spread out before me were an awesome combination. Earth and sky and....large masses of fine droplets of water, technically speaking; but why am I speaking technically? It's most certainly a poetically-speaking sort of a day. Earth and heavens and...billows of ephemeral soul-stirring whiteness.






Other than the ten minutes spent in a church parking lot taking deep breaths and telling myself that excruciatingly slow-moving government vehicles have every right to travel the same roads on the same gorgeous day as myself, the whole trip was an exquisite pleasure; and even that little interlude of inspiring spire-gazing while I waited for the offending vehicles to creep right on out of my path was not without its positive aspects.











After I got to my friend's house and picked up the curtains, I got to turn around and take the whole trip again, and I discovered that all of the scenes looked just as good in reverse, and...




...amazingly enough, so do the curtains!





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THERE WERE BRIGHT BURSTS OF COLOR AND LIGHT EXPLODING overhead last night. But when I got up early this morning, lo and behold, there was another impressive display in the sky. Peacefully and quietly, the morning was painted with color and light--every bit as awesome as the cracking and popping and booming display a few hours ago.


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I HURRIED TO PUT THE DEVIL IN THE eggs, so as not to be late to the Fourth of July cookout with extended family.

And then I gave it a dressy disguise...

...and carted it off to compete with all the very angelic side dishes--the bowls of summer fruit salad, pasta salad, cole slaw, baked beans, first-of-the-season corn-on-the-cob.


The weather behaved so admirably, as did the neighbors with their slightly illegal fireworks...







Of course, there was lots more fireworks viewing to be had--en route home, and far into the evening--teeny tiny displays on every hand.

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Altogether, it was a lovely Independence Day celebration. I'd give it fifty stars.
Maybe even throw in a few stripes, too.

And just look how we cleaned up the devil...!


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IT'S LILY SEASON. LOVELY LILY SEASON. Seeing as how they are on my short list of favorite flowers--partially because they come in my favorite colors--I thought I would catalog all that I saw today, beginning with the ones on my dining room table.


These are from the overgrown mass in my flower garden, and while they please me, I'm even more fond of the ones growing in lush abundance beside the roads. They're so generous with their wild orange beauty.



I rather soon realized, however, that you, Dear Reader, would likely get exasperated, if not downright irritated, were I to show you every single one of the clumps of lilies along my path today as I drove to Fair View to unlock #15 in order that two very efficient young men could take a thoroughly fogged-up patio door out of its sliding track and place it over two sawhorses and operate on it. (The glass-replacement surgery was fascinating.) And then you might even now be mumbling to yourself if I'd kept snapping pictures en route to the Home Depot store (where I spent fifteen minutes in aisle three trying to obtain a few electrical outlet cover plates in non-breakable nylon and in the color off-white [ivory would have sufficed, as would have ecru, beige, tan, buff, cream, oatmeal, sand...geez, I'd have even accepted camel!] You can bet I was doing plenty of mumbling myself until I went to procure a 33 and a 1/2 inch dowel rod in aisle eleven and a young man in an orange apron stepped right up and produced one with a hand saw in less time than it took to even find an employee in aisle three.)


Oops, wasn't I speaking of the ubiquitous lily? And determining not to show you too many of the ones I spotted? Yes, Dear Reader, I was. And therefore, although I relished the sight of many glorious clumps and groupings and expanses of them today, I'm showing you very few. Even if you care no more about lilies than a horse's--you know--rear-end, you're not likely to feel I've overshared.


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