Happy Solstice!

Thank you for all the nice compliments for the osprey yesterday. 

This fascinating flower is, according to my iPhone, the Carolina horsenettle. It is native to the US and invasive here, in Europe, Asia, and Australia, so yes, we do have a North American plant that invades other continents. As pretty as it is, it completely looks like a weed where it is located in my neighbor's front area. 

I read the certificate for a departing employee again this morning. I was too good. Now I'll be asked to do it all the time.  

I never had a birdbath before this year. It is so fun to see birds actually bathing in it. 

It is such a delight to be in a meeting, talking with someone online, while watching birds in the birdbath or in the trees or on the gigantic hostas or running around under the plants checking out the mulched areas. 

Also fun - watching crows expand their abilities until they can carry FOUR Cheetos at once. 

Finally, yesterday I got to see a woodpecker with a Cheeto in its mouth climbing the tree behind our house. 

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general, is in Ukraine to discuss prosecution of Russians for war crimes. He and Ukraine's prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, will discuss US and international efforts to help Ukraine identify, apprehend, and prosecute those committing war crimes. Earlier this year Garland said that our senior prosecutors were conferring with Ukrainian prosecutors, EU officials, and European law enforcement to gather and analyze evidence. The FBI and State Department are also involved. 

Donated long-range artillery systems and Ukrainians trained on how to use them should help Ukraine in battles to come. While Russia has been able to get territory in the east region of Luhansk, its progress has been slow and painful. It has sometimes taken them weeks to move one or two miles, which is incredible given that we never assumed Ukraine had a chance. With the cost to Russia and the new weapons for Ukraine, Russia may not be able to make similar gains in the neighboring region of Donetsk according to Pentagon officials.  Frederick B. Hodges, a former US Army commander now with the Center for European Policy Analysis predicts that Ukraine, with western weapons, will slow Russia's advance and begin to roll it back by late summer. "War is a test of will, and the Ukrainians have superior will," General Hodges said. "I see the Ukrainian logistical situation getting better each week while the Russian logistical situation will slowly degrade. They have no allies or friends."

Satellite images suggest that Russian artillery shells are often exploding on the ground near Ukrainian trenches, not in the air above them. Stephen Biddle, a military expert and professor at Columbia said that suggests the ammunition is old and poorly maintained. 

Tracking where Russian jets go, the Russian rich are having to change their habits. They used to fly off to Geneva for weekend shopping trips. Now they have to go to Kazakhstan and Turkey and United Arab Emirates. You know how hot it is in the United Arab Emirates? A Dubai-based company just opened the city's first banya, or Russian sauna in time for 110 degree F (43 degree C) days. It won't be as fun. "You can't drink vodka in the steam room. They definitely can't be naked."