Sunflowers and others

Frains Lake early morning on my ride

my bitemoji looking annoyed

Dont'tae's experimenting with Snapchat

What is this? A safflower. A big sack of seeds is developing under the flower. As it is not near the bird feeders, I assume the chipmunk or squirrel buried the seeds and forgot about it. The bird store told me that cardinals love safflower (3x the price of sunflower seeds) and that rodents hate them. Not true.

Portuguese gelato flower. One of my nieces is in Portugal

Balloon flower

Momma turkey and her nine turkey teenagers on my bike ride

Purple loosestrife. Pretty but an invasive weed

This field of sunflowers was near my new friend's. I could see it off her deck

Well it finally did rain, which was badly needed, Saturday cooling things off for just a little bit but now, we are back to being in a furnace. I do not do well in heat. We still could have swam at our pool party that afternoon as the lightning had stopped but the cool air dissuaded some (I am sure the water was still plenty warm).

Instead we sat on the deck drinking and acting silly like designing bit emojis for each other well into the night.Still it was fun. Thunder and flashes of light were off in the distance. The Maltese Lost has two dogs, her babies. One of them is a 120 pound golden retriever who is extremely upset by thunder. His first reaction is to jump into a human's lap for comfort which is crushing. They bought a 'thunder suit' for him that compresses his body and provides comfort. The thunder continued most of the day and night and he really needed to go outside. It was fun watching her trying to lure him out with various treats (he does like to eat too). Outside is where the thunder is. But he finally peed a day's worth and was well rewarded for braving the outside.

She lives about an hour from me. Sort of scary navigating the very rural, unfamiliar roads in the rain and extreme darkness. My 'check tire pressure' light was on. Should I stop at a gas station ?(assuming I could find one? It didn't seem to affect my steering so I pressed onward. Do I take this car with the dicey tires to DC this week? It gets better mileage and better radio or do I take our older, but much less miles, comfortable big car. Maybe I will load up the big car with Italian tapes to refresh my skills.

Sunday morning, back on the saddle. I didn't do my 'big' ride sticking to the area for 22 miles. I got a late start as it was very late when I came home the night before. Later Josh and Allie came over. Too hot to stay outside but it is nice and cool in the basement and plenty of things there fto amuse Allie.