It’s a good thing to stop and smell the roses.

But if you are going to stop and smell these guys:

You might want to be careful, else……

Good thing pollen comes off of beard and skin more easily than it does carpet and tablecloths….

The cutest thing.

Summer finally showed up around here – we’ve had day after day of beautiful sun. And a fair amount of smoky haze, which the weather people say is coming from either Colorado. Or Siberia. Whatever. It is NICE out there.
I looked out the window the other day and saw a juvenile rabbit browsing along in the sunshine. When I looked again I saw this:

Time for a rest under the Japanese maple.

Hope you are enjoying your summer, too.

Celebrating the First…

Usually we’re in Montana at this time of year. But for the summer of 2012 it has worked out for us to head out a little later. And that has meant we’ve spent the long days of June here at home. For only the second time since we moved here 12 years ago! And we’ve been able to enjoy the peonies this year, and the different light that lingers so late. And – the Canada Day Parade in Sidney. Actually, we enjoyed a bunch of events.

We went to dinner in Sidney on Saturday night – while we dined at Haro’s in the Sidney Pier Hotel (excellent meal!) we had a front row seat to watch the community barbeque that was winding up in the park outside the window. Later a concert began in the bandstand. By the time we joined the fun there was cake being served and the crowds were really building. It has been cool and rainy here forever but the clouds began to lift on Saturday night, meaning that the crowds were really streaming in for the fireworks show.

We, of course, didn’t stick around until 10:00 for the fireworks, but we were up bright and early Sunday morning for the Kiwanis pancake breakfast. Once we had consumed a huge quantity of pancakes, sausage and strawberries we found ourselves a spot on the street to watch the parade.

Y’all probably know that I only consider a parade a parade if it has horses and pipers. Out here on the coast we’re often way short on the horse department – unlike the Stampede parade and the pooper scooper parade that keeps things tidy. But this year – more than one horse!

Big horses:

That’s actually Elizabeth May, our Member of Parliment riding in the wagon, but I was entranced by the beautiful heavy horses, so my apologies, Ms May.

Little horses:

Up here on the peninsula there are several people keeping miniature horses and we see them in town from time to time or being walked on the back roads of North Saanich. Isn’t this little one a cutie!

And – of course – pipers:

Gotta love those men in kilts!

After the parade we went to see the start of the Build a Boat contest. Teams of three have four hours to build a boat – it must float, hold all three team members and be able to travel a course in the bay in front of Sidney. Team members have $100.00 worth of material and must construct their vessel without power tools. We arrived just after things got underway:

One of the prizes awarded is ‘First to Sink’, which gives you an idea of how things tend to go.

I’m glad we got to celebrate the first here in our town!