Slight Detour: A Summer Sunday

It truly feels like summer out there this morning.

Not only has the weather improved, but hints of upcoming summer visitors, local happenings, lovely weather and all the sports events like NBA Finals and World Cup Soccer seem to be coming together to remind us of these months of relative leisure.

Actually, there's never a lot of leisure involved with summer, but we can pretend.

Plus, witnessing great wins like the Knicks had last night and the USA soccer team the night before just adds some extra adrenalin to our outlook.

Today we also celebrate my oldest brother Mike's 82nd birthday.

He has lived an impressive life, doing his darndest to do the right things and to be a good example for others to emulate.

He has succeeded.

Many of us Americans still celebrate such things, and that's what we'll do today in his honor.

Happy Birthday to Mike, the oldest of the siblings and the oldest of all the Brown cousins.

Keep up the good work with your life and your observations on the unfolding events of history in this country.

We appreciate your voice, and we appreciate you.

I know that it seems almost cliche to regular blog reader when I identify people as former students, but it's hard not to do when you taught 4,500 of them in your hometown, including this pair.

Jeralyn was reading a speech she had written 13 years ago about Susan Bristow, when Susan was honored as a local Woman of Wisdom.

The occasion for this reading of the speech was Susan's celebration of life gathering at Sagle Senior Center.

Susan's son Kevin acted as emcee for the remembrance event.

Jeralyn loved the word "homespun" to describe Susan, who had grown up in Bonner County, lived on farms, cooked and served as a classroom aide at Sagle School. She also grew a beautiful garden every year, including gorgeous flowers. Susan was a familiar face at the flower exhibits each year at the Bonner County Fair.

As Kevin said, all she would have wanted would be for people to gather and visit, so that's what a packed house did yesterday.

Oodles of familiar faces, and lots of them gathered around Susan's husband of 63 years, Garry (pictured below).

I think Susan would have approved of the event in her own "homespun" way.

I love the discovery moments of watering every morning.

Seems like magic that suddenly tomatoes are appearing on the vines.

I can't wait for the watering session when I see all those big poppies burst open in their north lawn flower bed.

There is a certain sadness to go along with the watering discoveries---once magnificent blossoms of gorgeous columbine or lupine or iris are deteriorating and falling from the plants.

They've put on an amazing show this year, and I'm sad to see them go but excited to see what appears each new day on the rose bushes and bean plants, etc.

Speaking of discoveries, yesterday while watering, I was able to verify that a chickadee is, indeed, inhabiting one of the garden bird houses.

I've seen birds pop in and out of the hole over the past few weeks, but yesterday I was able to observe the chickadee land on the garden fence and slowly make its way to the bird house with an edible in its beak.

Eventually, it entered, stayed for a few seconds and then exited to fly off for some more food for what I assume are the babies.

Fun stuff to watch.