Love this time of year!

It was a gorgeous, sunny day today. A little cooler than it has been for most of the week, but it was a day without rain, so the kitties were happy to be able to be out in the back yard playing wild cats. (They're indoor cats, but they're allowed out in the fenced yard when our dogs are out.)

This is Lucy, most likely stalking a bird. Or, she may be giving the dogs a crazy look... hard to tell with her sometimes.

And here is Zoey (you may remember her from the photo where she's camped out on the corner of my desk in an earlier post). It took me a couple minutes to find her this time. She loves to hide out under the purple smoke tree. I should look there first next time.

When I was done following my cats around, I took some time to snap some photos of some of the flowers that are blooming now. Many of them are just explosions of color. I believe this purple one is in the geranium family, but can't say for sure. I think I got this one from my mom, who had gotten a piece of it from one of her sisters. Lots of my plants are divisions from relatives or friends. Trading is a great way to get a big mix of colors and plants without spending a ton of money. Perennials can be so expensive!

This one is clematis which happens to be in desperate need of a trellis. I'll get around to putting one up one of these days.

Coral bells. They didn't want to sit still in the wind for the photo.

This is one of my favorites and it keeps reseeding itself all over my flower beds, a columbine. I keep planting various colors, but eventually they all come up purple. Fine with me... they're striking.

This is one of the few yellow columbines that came up this year. Hopefully it'll keep coming back and spreading.

From the aster family, I'm told it's called "bachelor's button", but I've seen other flowers that are called that as well, so I'm not sure. You don't find too many blue perennials, so this one is nice to have around.

I got this shot right after a rain shower yesterday. Dianthus is just a profusion of blooms right now. This one is doing particularly well. It's about 4 years old and I'll probably have to end up dividing it this fall. 

Well, that's what's going on right now in some of my beds. I have poppies with big buds on them in the back of my yard. I can't wait for those to open!