Hail and Fair Weather

We had a huge hailstorm the other day with hailstones as big as acorns. I took this picture as it was ending. The weather here tends to the extremes, very much like Tucson only within minutes rather than months. After sweating in hot humidity for a week or so, now we're shivering and closing windows, cuddling up in throw blankets. I'm sure the heat will be back soon!

I finally got our vegetable garden in this past weekend—I'll take pictures once it gets established, which it will hopefully do since this is our second round of plants. The first round died in its peat pots while waiting for us to get around to planting them. Oops. So we won't be saving much money with this garden this year, but the pleasure level of eating fresh, homegrown tomatoes (and bell peppers, eggplant, and cilantro—we ended up unintentionally with a ratatouille garden!) is worth whatever it costs, in my opinion. And, by the way, the hail didn't hurt the vegetable garden.

This morning as I made my breakfast, I was admiring the purplish red color of the house finch at the birdfeeder when suddenly he was out-gloried by a vibrant yellow goldfinch—WOW! Now that's color! I took this picture through our closed and screened window, so the quality is less than wow, but it gives you at least a shadowed glimpse of the glory. Just one of the reasons I like birds (as expressed in a live, punked-out version by my favorite band, Eels—check it out by clicking on the words "I like birds")!