Perfect Summer's Day

Oh me, oh my, what a perfectly lazy day.

We slept in this morning, then had friends come over for a leisurely dip in the pool. We splashed around for a bit then sat on the front steps shooting the breeze while enjoying a most unusual dry, cool breeze. The kids ran on the lawn and swung in the tree swing while my friend and I squinted into the sun watching them, sipping cups of water spiked with lime slices. All we needed was a big plate of watermelon. We felt like we were in a Country Time Lemonade commercial. I should have paid more attention to the time and gotten to the local farm stand before it closed for some Silver Queen corn and Jersey tomatoes. Well, there's always tomorrow.

After a bit of Googling I have become reasonably certain that our bird tenants are House Wrens, which sound all cottagey and cute, but apparently are vicious savages which routinely attack other nests, destroying the eggs and young of other bird families. They're not as bad as House Sparrows, which are known to brutally attack nesting birds and then build their own nests on top of their victims' corpses in spite and triumph, but they're still supposedly pretty bad bullies. I'm not sure I'm glad I now have this information as it kind of casts them in a whole new light. What once appeared to me as a sweet, docile little songbird now seems to have a cruel, sinister look about its glinty eye and sharp beak. Are we harboring criminals, bloodthirsty beasts of death and destruction, providing them with a headquarters from which to plan their next rampage? I suppose it doesn't really matter since it's illegal to disturb the nests of House Wrens, them being a native species and all. And, still, at least they're not those pesky Starlings. When they had a nest in the eave of the same porch roof their poop accumulated so much it almost caused the interruption of our mail delivery! But, I must say I'm curious to see how our upstart House Wrens do against the Blue Jays--they're the ones I remember attacking nests and baby birds.

I have no pics to share today. I tried to get one of Man-Cub swinging lazily on the glider in the gazebo with my friend's two boys. They just sat out there forever, swinging and chatting, giving each other Indian Burns and Wet Willies. It was adorable but I didn't manage to get a pic before they ran off to think of other clever ways to hurt each other. Their big idea of the day? Throwing those heavy bean bags you use when learning to juggle at each other's bellies as hard as they could. They were very brave, but I could tell they were all hurtin'.

Well, it's off to the salt mines for me. Dinner must be prepared and I don't think I'm going to get a reprieve today so I'd better go beat a pack of chicken into submission.