What makes me happy today

Yesterday, the boys and I decided today would be a perfect day to go hiking in the foothills. It's supposed to be hot, so we'd have to go early. Oops...I overslept. By the time I got out of the shower, it was already 9:30, and the boys were whining that they didn't want to put on pants. We elected to put it off until Thursday, when it's supposed to be 75 instead of 85. We'll be lazy instead today. Here it is after noon and they aren't even dressed yet--yikes!

I went out to water the trees and plants and snapped a few pictures. This is what I love about this time of year:

We have fresh fruit ripening on the trees and bushes: cherries, plums, apples, blueberries and strawberries. We have apricots and raspberries, but they aren't bearing any fruit yet.

This strawberry is actually the third one to ripen, but Dexter, our border collie/lab mix, snagged the first two. That dog loves strawberries. We'll probably have to cover the berries somehow.

The cherries look ready to go any day! We must have 40 or 50 out there on the tree.

Beautiful, colorful flowers:

And finally--mama bird. She built a nest in one of our hanging baskets on the front porch. Last year there were eggs, but the boys and I kept pulling the basket down to look at them, and mama bird caught us and abandoned the eggs. This year, we've been careful to leave them alone, so no pics of the eggs.

Hanging basket

Mama bird sitting on her eggs. I took this with a telephoto lens from the front door. She's out of focus, but if you look carefully, you can see her eye and her head right in the middle of the photo, under the white flower.

Mama bird is on the fence next door watching me water the flowers and take pictures.

We're hoping to hear little baby birds soon!

Taking a break from creating this afternoon. I'm going to see if I can get the boys motivated to get out and do SOMETHING! I want to enjoy this beautiful sunshine before the rain comes in again.