First of all…the pears! I planted this tree about four years ago, and this year, it not only bloomed for the first time, but it’s also setting quite a lot of fruit. It’s a Seckel, a miniature pear.
Really happy to see this. I hope the squirrels don’t eat them all…the squirrels are becoming a major problem for my entire neighborhood. They are destroying everyone’s garden, eating everyone’s fuit, nesting in attics, and actually chewing off one neighbor’s house siding! They are literally just rats with fluffy tails, and one neighbor is going to try shooting them with a bb gun. I have my doubts he’ll manage to hit any, much less control the problem, and I suspect I’ll need to start treating this overpopulation of squirrels like I do when I have an overpopulation of rats. People….if you wouldn’t put food out for rats, don’t feed the squirrels, either. They are not “cute” when they start eating your house siding right off your walls!
What is cute is a mama hen, teaching her chicks to roost for the first time.
Sansa has had it with nest boxes…she and her chicks now roost every night. They still snuggle underneath her, however!
We don’t have many butterflies in my area apparently – because I hardly ever see any, despite my garden being filled with flowers for them. One variety we do see occasionally is the Western Yellow Swallowtail. It normally flits through at top speed, and about the time I see it, it’s gone.
Yesterday, it not only stuck around for several moments, it allowed me to get REALLY close with my camera! Such a gorgeous big one, too…it was fully four inches across.
It felt like a gift from God.
Also a gift…when I got off work last night at 8pm, there was a rainbow waiting for me. It was so strange, because I’ve never seen a rainbow before when it wasn’t raining, and not only had it been sunny all day, but the skies looked like this:
There was just one little patch of darker clouds over to the southeast, and a rainbow. By the time I got home, the skies surrounding the bow were darker still, there was only a little bit of the rainbow left:
Thank you, Lord, for the promise of what’s past…and the warning of what’s to come.
Out of Eden 
my dad got a strong sling shot to “get” the squirrels. The first one he shot trembled on the branch, and fell to the ground. Tender-heart that he is, he couldn’t shoot another one, ever. He even had to put the squirrel out of it’s misery. If we had had food that was being eaten, maybe he would have been more determined. Maybe not. LOL
😁
Seckel! is a variety that I have never even seen on a tree. I do not know why it is not grown here. The fruit is in one store in town. The fruit is not much bigger than big crabapples! I do not think that I would grow one because we already have too many pears, and one of them is good for canning; but it was nice to get a few ‘Seckel’ pears two years ago.