It is already 80° at 8:00 this morning. Methinks it will be another hot humid day. Birds are already in the bird bath, either driking or splishing and splashing. There is a nice breeze going out there though. My backyard is covered with about 80% shade. I did go out yesterday morning and work on the west perimeter fenceline flowerbed. I'd say it was a minimum of 15° cooler in the backyard than in the front.

My flowerbed I worked on yesterday looks so much better. It looks loved this morning. The one on the north side of the backyard though is going to be much more difficult. And then --- there is the front southside bed to do. Do you get the idea that just maybe we have too many flowerbeds? The problem is that we don't work on them consistently and then they get out of control. One would think we would learn to do better. Ahh well, --- old dog, no new tricks.

I am amazed at the number of blooms our hydrangeas have on them this year. Last fall we really cut them back because they were not blooming all that well. We had heard that they weren't supposed to be trimmed but decided that they couldn't do worse than they had been. Obviously we did that right thing for them. They have exploded with huge flower heads this year. So, thank you, Lord, for helping us accidently do it right.

The lady behind us has her mowing crew out there already this morning. She has a shady yard too so it is a good time to be out there. Ours don't need it yet. I may wait until Saturday afternoon and mow it. I know my neighbor Dan will mow it while I'm on vacation at least once and if Julie and Jim come here to spend the 4th of July, maybe Jim will knock it out for me. Then again, if it stays hot and dry, it won't grow much anyway.

There were more bad storms in the upper mid-west yesterday with many tornados. I heard that there were two deaths, including a five year old girl. My heart breaks for the family. So my prayers again this morning are for God's comforting hand to be with them. I can not imagine that sense of loss they must feel.

I also pray for our nation and our military families this morning. Once again our Marines are being sent into Iraq to beef up security at our embassy there. There is a huge religious civil war going on in that country and the insurgents are particularly violent. All of this is being done in the name of God. God must be weeping.  I pray we will not lose any of our people in the battles between Iraqi citizens.

Let's all pray for peace today and rather than fighting and killing each other on this planet, I pray we can stop and count our blessinngs. I hope your day is wonderful.