After a lovely, surprising and unusual three day rain event, all of Central Texas has greened up beautifully. We received 3 inches of life giving sky juice, and the grassy fields have turned green again. The summer wildflowers are blooming,……
providing plenty of nectar for the local bee and butterfly population. This gives the critters feeding on such insects much to grin about. When it rains it seems everyone wins out in one way or another.
Here’s a spiny lizard waiting for a tasty treat to buzz by. He was so intent on sunning himself he didn’t really care that I was puttering in the garden right beside him or even rushing back with a camera to take a few closeups. 
The birds are enjoying the increase in insect populations too! Especially grateful is the newly fledged cardinal family that seems to find my back porch a welcome reprieve from the blazing sun and a handy trap for tasty, traveling beetles.
Isn’t this young cardinal fledgling just adorable!?
Papa cardinal staying watchfully close to his brood.
The rivers are even flowing with a slight bit more gusto. Mind you we are still in severe drought and our lakes are only 36% full, but its always nice to see some of that wet stuff fall from the sky. And mercifully the daytime temperature only reached into the upper 80’s as opposed to the normal high 90’s we usually get in July. A short but wonderful reprieve.
Not to miss out on this good opportunity, the Texas Sage plants have bloomed again. They were covered in bees and my hive is doing great thanks to them.
Once the blooms fade they drop from the bush and shower the ground with soft pink petals. It looked like it had rained pink blooms overnight.
There were even puddles of blooms in the rocks.
Texas sure keeps things interesting around here!
I have not forgotten the magical words, “Texas Sage”, since you mentioned them a while back. What a display they have put on! Simply beautiful!! You mention bees but I recall you also mentioned hummers ‘n butterflies, correct? I still have my pea-brain set on TWO of them. Looks like the critters have struck it rich at your “digs”, isn’t it miraculous how that rain sets everything in motion. Just makes it “click”!
Everything about this is GOOD!! The photography ( I know you were kidding me before ), the colors, the designs, rocks, water ..!! Very well done, mighty nice!!
P.S. The bees I complained about taking over my feeders were coming from two houses in the neighborhood!! They were dragging buckets of bees out of those two places. Now they aren’t as bad as before, but they are hanging around my water fountain daily.