We were off to Cabot fairly early Saturday morning for Ridge’s AAU basketball games. They breezed through the first game, and won the second by a sizable margin. He is a really good basketball player, and has really good teammates. 

More basketball was played on Sunday, missing out on the state finals by only a couple of points in OT—the boys played well, but made way too many turnovers. We took Ridge home after the game and he was awfully quiet; he doesn’t like to lose!

Kay had her usual social and sports events Tuesday and Wednesday, while I played pickleball for the first time since injuring right knee a few weeks ago. First game went okay, but at the beginning of the second game, I was waiting on my partner to serve and felt three pops, and excruciating pain in the right hamstring. It’s been a terrible season for injuries; and I’ll be out for a few more weeks. Ridge played more basketball on Wednesday night, including a few minutes with the 8th grade team. He played really well in all the games, and especially well with the 8th graders. We provided his shuttle service to and from the games. These photos were made on Tuesday, June 4.

On Thursday, Kay took care of some car maintenance in Hot Springs while I had a haircut and dental cleaning, after which a few photos were made in the backyard.

The highlight of the week was on Friday as we had lunch with the Starrs. Food was good, the company was great, and the $2 beer was fantastic. Seems like the same creatures were enjoying the backyard as the day before.

No basketball today, Saturday. Kay played pickleball in the morning, and I drove to Middle Fork Barrens Natural Area to do some photography. It proved to be a good day as the really rare Pelton’s Rose Gentian was blooming and the rare Diana Fritillaries were flying. Interestingly, the butterflies did not start moving until about 11 AM and the dragonflies about 11:30 AM.

After returning home, these photos were made in the backyard.

On Friday and Saturday of the following week, I took advantage of our new butterfly garden and made several photographs of butterflies, and dragonflies and damselflies. It is so relaxing to just walk around and observe the flittering and sometimes fast-flying creatures.