A Country View (and Bees too)

Hi everyone. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. 

My clothes dryer (that I mentioned yesterday needed to get fixed by my husband), is all fixed and back working. Hurrah for that! And the rain that was suppose to come down all day yesterday vanished until  later Saturday night, and we even saw the sun a little while, so I was able to get out and do a bee check. Hurrah for that too. Of course the rain did eventually come, and Sunday (today) has been wet, but there is something nice about a dark Sunday and being lazy. I know the western part of my state has had some flooding that caused road wash outs and wet homes, but nothing as bad as some places in the world.

Today I want to share this page from my garden journal, which was really hard to hold flat for this photo because it is the back page (not the back cover) of the book. That is why the metallic paper trim seems to be heading up as it is heading into the spine because I couldn't actually get it very flat at all.

My background was painted a couple of shades of green and then stamped with some darker green ink dots.  I added a strip of paper with lots of punch out that has been in my stash for too long (back from scrapbooking days), some red masking tape, a metallic gold paper sun and an ancient stamped quote (one of my favorites) from when Stampers Anonymous wasn't just Tim Holtz and some of the other Ranger designers. (Although I am not putting down all the great stamps TH and the Ranger designers create.) 

The wonderful Italian countryside image came out of an old cookbook I have from the 1990's that I never used even once. I hate cutting it apart, but on the other hand, I don't think I will ever use it if I haven't yet, and it has some wonderful pictures in it. At least one page  now has a new life on my journal page. 

I am linking up to Alison's challenge at Art Journal Journey. Her theme is Summer Countryside, and that is what I am showing you today.

And with the little bit of brighter skies Saturday afternoon I went out for a bit into my garden.

I spied this beautiful butterfly on a bee balm flower.

I looked it up as I don't know the names of many butterflies, and it is called a White Mountain Fritillary or an Atlantis Fritillary. I'm not sure which. 

And there were lots of grasshoppers sitting on this bunny garden ornament.

These 2 decided me checking the bees was interesting enough to watch, but from a distance. 

My husband has declared he is the official bee photographer (smile), and he came out to take pictures. He even got fairly close this time. I guess that means he is getting comfortable with them.

There's honey being made in my top hive box, which is what is suppose to be happening. This will be food for the bees over the winter.

In my bottom hive there are more capped larva and a lot more bees. To my inexperienced eye, all is looking good.

I'll be back tomorrow for T with my boating adventure story. (Which of course now will seem rather dull and boring since some of you might expect it to be more exciting than it was.) 

Have a great start to the new week.  I hope it is dryer than ours is supposed to be.