Life, liberty, and the joy of air conditioning...

It's been quite a week, here in Lake Wobegone...Oh, wait, that's some other writer's line.  Try that again...It's been a typical summer week, here on the beautiful prairie.  The temperatures have hit the upper 90's with the heat index far enough over 100 to cause advisories to be issued.  My van had it's annual summer breakdown, this week, but I was able (after phoning my mechanic for advice) to limp it home... at 35 miles per hour, at 3 p.m., on the Friday of a holiday weekend.  Better than waiting alongside the freeway for a tow truck, but with my paint job, I'm not exactly incognito.  Just enjoying the scenery folks...uurrrrgh.

I had planned to take Faithie outside for drawing lessons in the garden today, but with a heat advisory in effect, we decided to substitue house plants and play it cool...very cool.

Here at Belle Ami, I finally got the big AC in the staircase window this evening. A BIG thanks to my art student's father, who stopped by to give me a hand, shortly after I requested his wife's permission to feature this photo of Artgirl, Faithie doing today's drawing assignment.

This mural's still not anywhere close to fully populated, but llamas and a bat took up residence this week.

Almost as cute as Faithie, is the pink bat and blue llamas I added to the never-ending mural at Unity of the Valley.  Yes a bat.  As both the artist, and the daughter of a forester, I'll not be perpetuating any scary-animal nonsense.  I know some people would prefer I stick to the cute and cuddly, but every animal is vital, and painting them in blazing techni-color is nonsensical enough to knock the stuffing right outta scary.  Besides, I think bats, at least the ones we have here, are really cute.  (Yes, not only am I the lady who moves turtles off of the highway, I'm the neighborhood bat catcher, when one accidentally wanders into a house.)

Somebody has to live in the cave below the waterfall.

Little llama with it's mama.

I hope you have happy plans for the Fourth of July, or more properly, Independence Day.  My little town of Belle Plaine has its summer celebration and fireworks in a few weeks, so it's pretty quiet around here over the holiday.  That's fine with me.  With temperatures this high, I'm looking forward to celebrating my freedom with a good book (#3 in the 100 Cupboards Series, if the library gets it in tomorrow) and about a gallon of iced spice tea, in air conditioned comfort.  Yeah, I know, wild party girl, I am. 

So, that's all the news from Belle Plaine, aka Beautiful Prairie, aka Dust Encrusted Flatland, where the women are sassy, the men are occasionally handy, and the kids are just dang adorable.  If you're on the road this holiday week, tune into National Public Radio, where you just might catch a little Garrison Keillor, whose lines I've borrowed (and mangled enough to avoid copyright issues) in this post.  Sing me out folks..."this land is your land, this land is my land, from California, to the New York Island, from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters..."