A Sporting Sunday Was Delightful

In Tour de France news, the Team Time Trials were held yesterday. That's not nail biting "drama" for Le Tour de France, but it can be very exciting. What I loved was that the team of the Yellow Jersey really pulled it off. Over the years there has been discussion around the topic of "the magic of the Yellow Jersey", and we saw yet another example of that yesterday when team Jumbo-Visma dominated the field and kept that Yellow Jersey on the back of Mike Teunissen. VERY well done. 

Congratulations to the US Women's Soccer team for their
fourth World Cup. Well done! 

The other major win yesterday were the women of the USA's soccer team, beating the Netherlands team 2-0 to win gold in World Soccer. I don't watch or follow soccer very much, but I had been hoping the USA women would pull it off, and they did in dramatic style with a 2-0 victory over the Netherlands. Yippee! (Sorry, my friends in the Netherlands.)  

For Stage Three we leave Belgium and head into France. It's a
relatively flat stage, so very open for the sprinters. There are
some very minor little hills as the riders approach Epernay.

Now we're on to Day 3 of Le Tour. We leave Belgium and enter France, ending at Epernay, France, 215km down the road. As I look at the overall route map, I think we're totally in France from this point onward this year, although there is one stage at the bottom of France where the riders may leave the country for a small portion of one day. Still, the next three days now are flat, flat and flat with one bump. It's time for the sprinters to shine and that Yellow Jersey might be in jeopardy. 

Here are my lovely pink lilies, happily blooming. I love the
stamen of the Chinese lilies. They shake and turn in the
slightest breeze, reminding me of paper Chinese
lanterns. Maybe that image lent itself to their name? 

If you recall, I had mentioned a while back about our lilies usually not blooming until the 4th of July. Yesterday was the first day for our day lilies to bloom, but the Chinese lilies have been blooming since July 3rd. Pretty close to time. 

Here are the day lilies. Yesterday was the first day for them to
bloom. You can barely see spots of red in the greenery
behind them. Those are the clusters of elderberries. 

There are some clustered red berries on a bush behind the day lilies. We did some research and the berries (and white flowers on the top branches of the bush) are elderberries. I wasn't aware of that, but they're quite lovely, and can also be seriously poisonous. 

I have two different Chinese Lilies blooming now, these are a
salmon variety, the other is more pink. The other two plants
had their buds eaten by deer about three-four
weeks ago, so they won't be blooming this year. 

Our backyard neighbor has built a skating U in his backyard for his kids. It's basically plywood sheets stapled and screwed over a frame that gives them the classic U shape with wide lips at both high points. It's loud. When the kids use it with their skateboards it rumbles. I can already tell this is NOT one of my favorite "toys". Still, the kids were on it for five minutes, then off for several hours, then on again. If they keep to that schedule, it won't be horrid. 

Have a great day, enjoy Le Tour today, and I'll be back for a VERY busy day tomorrow.