Mille Fiori Favoriti

It's almost July, and July 4th, 2026, the USA will be celebrating its Semiquincentennial--the 250th anniversary of becoming a nation!

I looked at my digital photos from over the years to pick out a few that symbolize patriotism and celebration in our country.

This August, 2026, will also be the Sesquicentennial--150th anniversary--of Colorado becoming a state!

Read President Ulysses S. Grant’s statehood proclamation admitting Colorado to the union on that date in 1876.

Did you know that the first official battle for independence of the United States of America, after the Declaration of Independence was read on July 4, 1776, was fought on August 27, 1776, in what is now called "The Battle Of Brooklyn"?

General George Washington's Continental Army fought against tens of thousands of British and mercenary Hessian soldiers in what is now the borough of Brooklyn, in the city of New York.

Many years ago, I wrote a three-part post about this monumental battle that almost ended our independence, showing the area of Brooklyn, NY, where it took place.

The links to those posts are here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

How about making a Mixed Berry Pie for the 4th of July? I made this one for a family celebration a few years ago, and have a recipe for a similar--Berry Cherry Almond Tart on this link.

Happy Fourth of July to America!

Happy July to all!

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Sunday, June 21, 2026

I've Looked At Clouds From Both Sides Now

We enjoyed a nice Father's Day barbecue celebration at our home this past Saturday. We celebrated a day early because the weather forecast for Sunday predicted rain, but I should have known better, because it turned out to be a beautiful day on Sunday.

In typical Colorado fashion, the weather was unpredictable!

It made me scroll through the sky photos in my collection since moving to Colorado thirteen years ago...

The Spring and Summer seasons often bring the most amazing cloud formations!

These towering, high, full clouds are called Cumulonimbus Clouds, and when I see them, this is what I think of...

...hail!

The first year we moved to Colorado, we experienced our first large summer hail storm. At first, we thought it was fun, as we had never seen such large hailstones. The streets and lawns looked like they were covered with snow in August. My husband joked that he never thought he'd need to shovel in summer. Fortunately, I thought to go down into our basement and was shocked to see a waterfall of melting hail come pouring in through our window wells. I used almost every towel I owned to mop up that water as it seeped through.

Similar to hail is Grapel -- a new word we learned that first winter. Graupel is precipitation that forms when supercooled droplets of water freeze on a falling snowflake. It looks and feels like large drops of slushy ice falling from the sky!

More often than thunderstorms and hail, however, we are more likely to see Virga in Colorado.

A virga, also called a dry storm, is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that evaporates or sublimates before reaching the ground. It is a new phenomenon to us, and another new weather word we learned.

Of course, we do get our share of thunderstorms. This one was approaching the city of Denver a few summers ago.

In years such as this one, when the West had unusually dry weather with very low snow and rain levels, we worry about lightning strikes causing wildfires, but rain is seen as a blessing for our high desert climate...

...and rainbows are always a welcome sight to see!

Speaking of rainbows, we learned another new weather word when we moved to Colorado...

...cloud iridescence!

Iridescent clouds are a diffraction phenomenon caused by small water droplets or small ice crystals individually scattering light. We usually see this in the winter months.