Just a few pictures of our wonderful week with Precious Little Piper and her Mama & Daddy-o! Pumpkins, Chile Ristras and Little P at Gus Wagner's in Corrales & Dawn Patrol at the Balloon Fiesta. More to come as soon as I get the chard and herbs covered! A frost is coming TONIGHT!

Late Summer, almost Fall. Snapshots of our days.

Summer is slowly slipping out the door here and Fall is just peeking in. Thinking about coming all the way in! Things get pretty busy when all the fruit trees ripen their fruit in quick succession of one another! For the first time, our pears are actually edible, and delicious! Prior to this year, they were beautiful - but if you took a bite, you swiftly spit it right back out. They were, in a word, if it is a word, yucky! But not this year! There's nothing so delicious, I think, as a sweet, fresh, ripe, chemical-free, homegrown pear. We feel pretty lucky to have all this fruit! So, Captain is building a pantry to house all the canning jars filled with our fruit in its various forms. Yay! Word from all the family, near & far, is that everyone is doing just fine. Summer has been kind. And Fred is getting at least a little bit "mature". Maturer, anyway. Teeny Tiny Bird Ben is over a month old now! That was fast! He is big fella too, over 10 pounds now! I will get to see him again in just a couple weeks. And his Big Sister too. Itty Bitty Bird is coming from North Carolina next month for her very first ever Balloon Fiesta! We can hardly wait to see her face light up when she sees the hot air balloons! We already have dozens of balloons in the sky most weekend mornings as folks get ready for the big event! We love sitting on the front porch in our pj's, with our coffee - watching in comfort. The roses are having their last hurrah - spectacularly! The sunflowers and zinnias are brilliant and plentiful. Captain's Pumpkin Patch is doing....ok. Some sort of blossom drop or poor pollination is causing us some grief out there; not as many "pumms" as there should be! And a couple of squirrels are taking bites out of several. (Did I hear Captain correctly? Pellet gun??) Anyway....here are some snapshots of some of our goings on here of late. Life truly is GOOD. For this we are grateful!

The Curandera Sculpture at The Bio Park. I love it!

A butterfly in the Butterfly House. Up close and personal.

Fred's first trip to the cabin. He LOVED rock-hopping and running, running, running!

Watermelon party under the portal with Miles & Gavi & Fred.

Some of the "fruits" of our labor. Work is such FUN!

Our New Teeny Tiny Bird!

Benjamin Lee has arrived, and we have made our way to see him! Big sister, Abby loves him & says, "He is so CUTE!". We agree entirely! What a sweet time we are having with this little family of ours.

Healing, re-gaining strength, and getting back to it!

Each day I am feeling a little bit stronger. It has helped that the flowers are putting on such a spectacular show this time of year. I am able to dead-head and prune but still have some trouble with chores that require lots of bending (as in weeding!). My abdomen doesn't appreciate bending yet. But I am getting there. I so appreciate good friends who have come over to help me weed, cut off spent blooms, and otherwise keep LBF in flower! And thanks to everyone who so kindly asks, "How are you feeling?" I am feeling really good - almost all of the time. Won't be long before our new Teeny Tiny Bird will be born in Ft Worth! I am sure I will be able to lift about 7-8 pounds by that time! All reports are that Sara is feeling great! And Abby is excited to be a big sister! (And Nate really hopes he is not out of town when the blessed event starts to happen!)

Surprises - good ones and not so good ones

Even Fred was eager to see those eagles pinned on Captain!

Four honorable men who have done military service.

For the first time in nearly a month, I am sitting down to write a new blog post. It is hard for me to sit for very long these days, given recent events; more on this shortly. I look around and see a thousand and one things I would like to do. But I don't have the energy or the ability. The past 3 weeks have indeed held some big old surprises for us here at Little Bird Farm! First - a very, very, very great surprise! Commander is now CAPTAIN! He received news of his promotion on June 21st! And on July 1st, we had the funnest Pinning Ceremony ever to celebrate! I am so proud of him! His career of 22 1/2 years brings him to this fabulous new place, which he richly deserves. Next - a less great surprise. When Commander learned about his promotion on June 21st, I was pretty much morphined out, lying in a hospital bed sporting a brand new train track of staples on my abdomen. SURPRISE! I do have a vague recollection of being really, really happy when he showed me his new silver eagles and told me the news! I think I smiled, rolled over, and hit my little yellow morphine button, drifting away again to that happy pain-free place. In a nutshell, here's what happened. I went in for a colonoscopy on June 19th. By midnight, I was on my way to emergency surgery to repair a tear in the wall of my colon. I remember looking for a place to lie down in the emergency room lobby while "then - still - Commander", signed me in. No place to lie down, I just slipped onto the floor and fell asleep. I had lost so much blood that I couldn't possibly stay vertical and the floor really felt good. So - seven days in the hospital. I've only snippets of recollections of the first 4 days. The strongest memory I have of those 4 days is how wonderful my hospital room smelled - like a florist shop! There were so many beautiful bouquets from the sweetest people in the world! Thank you! I remember Commander staying with me the first three nights, when I was weakest and most confused, sleeping in a chair at my bedside. Thank you! And there were such kind visits from such loving family and friends! Thank you! Friends and family have brought us countless delicious meals. The flowers and cards and calls and provisions of love & support have blown me away! Fred has been so well cared for by our amazing neighbors! (How confused he must have been!!) An enormous "thank you" to everyone who has been so incredibly present for us throughout this wild, freaky, fabulous, (also read: terrible) time!!!