You may have heard about the wild fires in Quebec and across Canada which have caused a smoke haze all across the eastern half of the United States. Jack got up early one morning and took a number of pictures showing how orange the sun looked through the fog and the haze. Beautiful but eerie too.

June is shaping up to not be the warmest month yet. We have had mostly cool to cold and rain off and on every day for almost a week now. In fact, I got to use my new rain suit when I went walking with the dogs on one of the days this week. It kept me dry but then the sun came out and it became a sweat suit.

We stayed up at the lake for a couple of days and then drove back to New Hampshire leaving Libby and Jack to fend for themselves as we promised we would do. We left them writing thank you notes to all the generous and wonderful family and friends who congratulated them on their recent graduations. They seemed to work out a system with Libby doing the art work and Jack doing the writing. You might guess why Libby won the Visual Arts prize when you see a sample of what she can create so beautifully. I love that they collaborated on this project together.

A Curious Phenomenon

You might look at this photograph and think “why is Lou putting an old picture from the spring in her blog?” The answer is “because it was taken this week”. When I got home and took the dogs out to the rail trail for our usual walk/hike, I noticed that the trees looked rather bare and brown. This was lush and green when I left so I do not know what has happened. I saw on our local social media that there was a thought that some of the trees were frost bitten by a late frost but I am not so sure. Anyone have any ideas? The dogs and I did manage to get in a couple of really good walks in Canada and again when we got home. It is really nice to be outside walking as much as we can.

Flowers Everywhere

One big surprise when we got to Canada was the discovery of the beautiful iris that have bloomed in a very neglected garden at the top of the stairs. They are quite stunning and I have no recollection of actually ever planting them. We were there last year but I do not remember seeing them at that time and we were not there the two springs before that. A mystery. Coming back to New Hampshire after being away from a week we discovered that the iris we had planted in our new front garden had bloomed. They are quite unique.

A New Recipe to Try

Once again returning to my favorite cookbook, this week’s effort will be to try and create Cheesy Tomato Basil Stuffed Chicken.

I’ll let you know how it turns out. I’m pretty good at making a mess of things even with the simplest recipe.