Butter: Today was a bad butter day. We bought cream yesterday at market and left it out over night like we normally do. In Winter, our house is so cold that we have to keep it near the woodstove to warm up. Apparently in Summer, our house is too hot to leave it on the counter that long. So it was a bad butter day, which is always a big bummer. The little babe refuses to eat store-bought butter and she hasn't had homemade for about two months. After I collapsed onto the kitchen table with burning arm muscles, I did some on-line research to figure out the problem and discovered that this is a common problem. So I learned something new and next week we'll leave it in the cooler entryway. 50 degrees sounds like the ideal.
Birds: As the little babe and I went into our room for quiet time, a large moving shape out the window caught my eye and I actually heard a loud movement of air. Realizing that a hawk had just been sitting on the chicken yard fence, I ran outside. I followed the bird to the large pine in the back of the yard and it was bold enough to allow me to walk right up under it. It was gray, with a distinct barred tail with a squared-off bottom. It was a Sharp-Shinned Hawk, which is similar to the Cooper's Hawk, but the latter is larger with a rounded tail. Luckily the tiny bantam chicks are protected by wire and the other seven ladies were hiding under the brush.
Beautiful: Every year I wish that I had more cut flowers and this year is the same. However, I managed to find several new hydrangea blooms on the back of the bush - the rest are fading to blueish-gray - and the spiky penstemon is just starting to bloom. Add that to some echinacea and my white mystery bush, perhaps a hydrangea variety judging by popular opinion from you blog readers, and it makes a decent bouquet.
Learning, adventure, and beauty. It was a full day.