Thunder, lightening, and rain were my alarm clock this morning. It had Ben a steady rain for the past hour but the sky is getting brighter now so perhaps we are getting to the back edge of the storm. Although my Accuweather app says rain for at least two more hours, and my Weather Channel Radar app shows a lot of green yet to pass by. Yeh, I'm a bit weather anal I guess.

The rain is light enough that it hasn't stopped the business at the buffet so far. I filled up a bunch of feeders again last evening and the birds have been swooping in and out all morning. It has been mostly small birds; finch, sparrows and downy woodpeckers. The first of the cardinal clan has just arrived and more will follow shortly, I'm quite sure. It seems the send out a scout each time to see if it is clear or not for them. Although, --  I have no idea whether they work in a community fashion or not. I do know that many times I have been filling feeders and I will hear a single Cardinal up somewhere tweeting and then will see more come in for food.

My yard looks great here out back this morning. I went ahead an took the trimmer to it and mowed it yesterday evening after the sun had dropped some. It was looking pretty shaggy and I wanted to get it cleaned up for the weekend. We are in the middle of the third heatwave for the summer and it isn't supposed to get any better until sometime Sunday evening. So, -- I decided to go ahead and get it done as the sun was setting. It didn't take that long and now I can sit back and enjoy.

One of my agenda items today is to go get my truck from the shop. Both of my automatic window switches have gone bad. I had the first one replaced and they called me this morning and said that the other one was bad too and it would be another $250.00 just to fix that one. My truck is under a recall from Dodge for something, I think it is the airbag issue, so I will take my truck to the dealer and have them look at that second door and see also if they have what they need for the recall issue. My local garage is a good shop for oil changes, tires, and that kind of thing, but I don't have the biggest confidence in them for some other stuff. I know we took our last Cadillac to them for an issue and they really hosed the job and I had all kinds of issues with that repair. But, I try to support local family businesses when I can. And, like I said, they are a good family.

"Woody" is back again this morning. That makes every day this week. I can't tell you how glad that makes me. Pilated woodpecker are rare and to have  regular is wonderful. Not, only is this one sitting here, I hear another one up in the tree --- and it just flew down as I was typing. So, I'm going to just sit here and watch them for awhile and give God thanks for an extra handful of blessings this morning. In the mean time I hope you have a wonderful day full of peace and love.