Still Waters

Still waters cool on a hot summer day.... (even if it is still a week until summer)
Norfolk Botanical Gardens (Click pictures to enlarge)

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters...
He restores my soul."
~ Psalm 23:1-3

The weather people at the Weather Channel that predict our local forecast have been way off on the temperatures. Always, Chesapeake is predicted at ten degrees higher than Suffolk or Virginia Beach. Several days they have said we would have temps between 103 and 105 and yet none have been above 100. Not that they haven't felt like 110. It hasn't so much been the temperatures, but the humidity. A temp of 95 with 40% humidity and a little breeze is easy to work in outside in the shade of the trees, but a temperature of 82 with 93% humidity feels like being a stalk of broccoli in a steamer.... five minutes and you are wilted. The mosquitoes love this weather and so do the Japanese beetles but few other creatures.

Oh to be at the botanical gardens.... Norfolk always has lower temperatures as well and the shade of the trees and the coolness of the green all around really calms that heat wave. Their "Enchanted Forest" has a new display this year, small playhouses designed and built by various architects and companies and each based on a different children's fairy tale or poem. I am looking forward to seeing the Old Lady and her shoe. Also, the butterfly house will soon be open.

Speaking of butterfly house... our own caterpillar has taken to his/her new habitat and is munching contentedly on the fennel. I must try and take another picture as he/she is now over 3 centimeters in length... just a bit more and it will be time to spin that cocoon. Oh, yes... I think our bluebird babies have hatched, the dad seems to be showing up more often at the actual nest.

Water lilies floating on invisible water....

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