Six evening primroses bloomed at different spots around the pond last night.  I believe this is a better close-up picture than I have been able to get before.  Its four-pronged, light green stigma in the centre is the motor that pushes the petals open . . . while you watch!   

Mr. McD and I headed outdoors after we had broken our fast  (had breakfast), coffee mugs and newspaper in hand.  Who knew whether we would be able to get out again, given how unsettled the weather looked?

The baby wrens certainly enjoyed a hearty breakfast, judging by the frequent trips made by their parents around the eight o’clock hour.   Sometimes they shopped in our neighbour’s yard . . .

 . . . and sometimes they flew silently and swiftly into one of our flowerbeds.  The truth is, they’re so busy now, they scarcely sing a note – so very different from the song-filled days before their family arrived.  

Come to think of it, how much singing did we do when we were diapering and feeding our kids?  With our firstborn, I was so pie-eyed from lack of sleep, I would have perished if my mother hadn’t arrived to help out for a week – a veritable angel on my doorstep with a suitcase in her hand!  

Well, at Cedar Hollow, it’s Bugs Ahoy! !  However, I wish the wrens had an appetite for the tiny red beetles that chew holes in the lilies, or the copper-coloured larger beetles that make lace out of whatever leaves they choose.  Hey!  Maybe we should team up.  When they get done with a leaf and it looks like a bit of netting, I should dip it in some metallic liquid and transform it into a piece of jewellery, like you find in booths at the fall fair! 

Around eleven, Mrs. B emailed me some pictures of Pipinka which her son took. 

In one of them, he was almost falling asleep in her hand.  Can you imagine that level of trust?  My hat’s off to our good neighbour, Mrs. B.  I’m too squeamish to pick up fishworms . . . yikes! . . . let alone hand-feed them, but she is not, and seems to know just what to do for the little bird.

 Before supper, we experienced a regular downpour of rain!   Hail danced and pinged about on the shed roof and patio!  Thankfully, the hail wasn’t very large, so I do hope the fruit orchards didn’t suffer damage.   Why did it hail?  Usually that only happens when the heat has been oppressive.

During a heavy rain like this, I sometimes think back to a poem we learned in public school:

The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole

And made him a home in the telephone pole.

The lightning flashed, the thunder rolled,

But he was safe in his little round hole.