A Fresh Cup of Coffee

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Sunday Stills - Farm Animals

This week the Sunday Stills prompt turns our attention to animals found on a zoo or farm. Pretty much any animal might be found in a zoo, I guess, and I have always enjoyed visits to the zoo. But I'm focusing on a few farm animals today.

I've never owned a horse, and it's been years since I went riding, but in my opinion, there are few animals as beautiful as horses.

These horses and their donkey companion belonged to our neighbors in Maryland, and were pretty friendly. Usually it made me feel so fortunate to look out over my backyard and see horses or other farm animals grazing peacefully.

And when the weather was not so good, we marvelled that animals were generally okay out there! They had a nice barn to take shelter in whenever they wanted to!

This beautiful team was giving wagon rides at Christmastime and I was so glad to get this photo. I wish I'd got their names.

Sort of straddling the fence between farm and zoo animals are bison. While they once roamed freely in the wild, their numbers were greatly reduced and thanks to zoos, wildlife preserves, breeding programs and more, the American bison has been recovering. Like beef cattle, they are raised on farms and ranches for their meat. Bison are semi-wild and can't be domesticated to the same extent that cattle are, and the ranches require heavy duty corrals and equipment to safely handle these powerful animals. About 200,000 bison are raised on privately owned ranches for their meat. Many wildlife preserves also have bison roaming on open ranges, and it is breathtaking to see just a small herd of them and imagine what it was like to see a prairie covered with herds of hundreds or thousands!

I have seen bison out west but don't have photos of those. This fellow was at the Columbus Zoo . . .

. . . and these are at the Batelle Darby Creek Metro Park in Galloway, Ohio (just southwest of Columbus).

Back to somewhat more traditional farm animals . . . cattle. Where we lived in Maryland, we were surrounded by dairy farms and quite a few of our friends were farmers. Peaceful scenes like this were part of the everyday drives in the area.

They were our neighbors, and most were quite friendly.

These calves were neighbors at the other end of the road.

I don't remember whether these were neighbors or not!

These oxen were not our neighbors, but I was impressed with their patient strength when we watched them work at a farm museum in Geneseo, New York, many years ago. Very handsome!

And I leave you with this darling little guy who was at Timbuk Farms (greenhouse and garden center) this past Christmas season.

This post is shared at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives for the #SundayStills Photo Challenge.

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Scripture and a Snapshot - Comfort

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

~II Corinthians 1:3-5~

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I also link up at the Sweet Tea & Friends Monthly Link-up Party hosted by Grace-Filled Moments

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Thursday, July 16, 2026

Everyday Images #92

Welcome to my ongoing challenge and reminder to myself to take photos somewhat regularly. I'm not a photographer, but I enjoy taking everyday photos of things I find interesting or want to remember later, and I'm more likely to notice interesting things when I'm intentionally watching for them. Having some prompts that are open to interpretation has helped me pay a little more attention to what's around me. Here's how it works: Every two weeks I have a few words and phrases to focus on, and I try to find opportunities to take pictures of these things each week. The link-up post will be here every other Thursday, sharing my photos and offering a link-up for participants to share theirs. Right below the link-up is where you'll find the next set of prompts.

July Prompts - Everyday Images #92

~~~~~

layers

current season (quarterly)

milestone

getting ready

wings

entrance

young

~~~~~

layers - the delicious layers of the Coffee Crisp bar I enjoyed for a snack at work

current season (quarterly)

milestone - red, white, and blue fireworks to celebrate America's milestone birthday! America 250!

getting ready - can't remember whether I was getting the grill heated up and ready to cook dinner, or actually getting dinner ready

wings - I gave up trying to get any photos of birds or butterflies, because I just didn't take many photos overall the past two weeks, and none of the opportunities I had to take bird photos worked out. So here is my cardinal windchimes that are in my kitchen right now, but need to be moved outside

entrance - guess we'll need to pull some weeds! It's funny that I really didn't notice them until I took the photo.

young - that's a very young me with my Mum and Dad

And a few bonus photos:

We really need to spend more time on the deck. I love it. It needs an umbrella or awning of some kind because the sun does beat down on it pretty hard in the late afternoon.

On July 3rd we went to fireworks in our city, and on the 4th we went to another suburb city for fireworks and a concert by the Wallflowers.

Furniture lined up against the wall right now, but it will get spaced out and dressed up a bit whenever I get organized.

Soon after I took this photo, we actually got a nice floor lamp, which went beside the china cabinet instead of right in front of it. haha. Slowly but surely we're getting settled and every day it feels a little more put together. It's slow because we just don't have much energy (or time) in the evenings, and this past weekend my husband had some health issues so we weren't home to work on the house.

I am sharing my photos every other Thursday, along with my prompts for the next two weeks. You can use all or some of the prompts for your own photo posts, or none of the prompts and just link up a post featuring your photos. Simple rules: Your posts must be family-friendly; the photos must be your own; and the post must be mostly photos. If you do share I'd appreciate a mention and link to A Fresh Cup of Coffee on your post.

The Everyday Images link-up is posted every other Thursday, and is open for two weeks.

July Prompts - Everyday Images #93

~~~~~

at home (monthly)

in my cup

path

Tuesday tranquility

summer

golden hour

out for a walk (quarterly)

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Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Deep Summer Hodgepodge

A hodgepodge is a jumble or assortment of things that might not appear to belong together. Joyce at From This Side of the Pond hosts a weekly link-up called Wednesday Hodgepodge that is a little collection of questions for bloggers to answer just for fun and to get to know each other. I always look forward to chatting with friends over coffee, so pour a cup of your favorite and let's visit for a few minutes!

Here are this week's questions - and my answers - for this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. "Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability." Sam Keen

Do you feel less guilty relaxing in July than you do in January? Elaborate.

I had to think about this, because at first it seemed like my inclination is to feel guilty about relaxing no matter the season, but that's not quite true. I feel guilty about relaxing when I am being lazy or procrastinating and there is something I should be doing but I'm just not. But that's not "relaxing" - that is being lazy. So a more thoughtful answer is that I am less inclined to feel guilty about kicking back and taking it easy in July than in January. While there may be just as much on my to-do list in either season these days, in July it's hot and humid, and taking a break to put up my feet and have a cold drink is more necessary and I do not (or should not) feel bad about resting and enjoying myself.

2. What's a telltale sign you're upset?

I don't think this is noticeable to others, but when I am stressed or anxious about something my hands itch - or at least I act like they do. If I'm scratching the backs of my hands or clenching and unclenching my hands sort of reflexively, it's likely that I'm anxious or upset about something. Not necessarily upset as in angry, but a more general upset. Now that I've outed myself, anyone reading that knows me in person will probably be watching for me to do this now. haha

3. July 16th is National AI Day. What are your general thoughts and/or experiences with AI? Have you purposely used it? Does it excite you, scare you, or worry you? What do you see as a benefit? How about something relating to AI you see as a negative?

I suspect I'm not alone in having a lot of mixed feelings about AI. I don't have a lot of experience with it, though I've used it to assist in writing some business-type communications, to search and compile information for me, and we've had some fun using the AI photo editing tools in our family messenger groups. What I like about AI and see as positive or as a benefit, is that information can be easily searched and aggregated. It is a moment's work to type a query into an AI tool and get statistics, historical data, overviews of legal documents, summaries of news stories or long articles, and more. Yes, you still should use your own common sense about the information it gives you, but with these kinds of powerful Q&A tools, there is no reason to remain ignorant or to believe lies. That said, there are aspects of AI that are deeply concerning as well. The big overarching question: Are there guardrails in place to keep AI in the place of a tool instead of becoming our "master"? There are plenty of stories circulating about AI being used to generate very convincing but fake photos and videos and the mischief people get up to. AI can be used to duplicate voices, and I know someone who came very close to being scammed by a bad actor who had sampled and duplicated a family member's voice and it was very convincing and scary. So this is an area that we as a society need to get a handle on. Like every tool, it can be used for good or for evil, and we need to deal with that reality.

On a slightly lighter note, but still an area of concern, I wonder whether art or music or literature produced by AI will help and hamper human creativity. There's a ton of AI slop in social media, and so far it seems like AI is hit or miss in terms of producing good creative writing. We already have a lot of digital art and digital tools being used in music, but if anyone can plug some prompts into an AI tool and produce a beautiful "painting" or "photo" or quality piece of music, does that take away from the talented artists among us using their skills and their ability to earn their living in that way? I'm on the fence about that. But I will leave you with a song written using AI, "sung" by AI generated persona Solomon Ray. Personally, I love Solomon Ray music, by the way. I think the creator behind Solomon Ray, Christopher Townsend, made a strong case for how and why he uses AI with this song.

4. You're invited to a summer pot luck and are asked to bring an appetizer, salad/side, or dessert. Which category do you go for and what are you bringing?

I used to always choose dessert if I had the option, but my favorite dessert to bring is Nanaimo Bars and if the pot luck is outdoors, the Nanaimo Bars won't fare much better than ice cream! Nowadays, I'll often bring an appetizer in the form of a charcuterie, or a salad. Either chicken salad or a Caprese salad platter.

5. It wouldn't be summer without ___________________________.

Sunshine. Hot dogs on the grill. Vacation. Baseball.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

The last few days have not gone according to our plan. My husband developed pain from a kidney stone on Friday afternoon, spent that night and most of Saturday at the hospital, and still isn't feeling well. The surgery to remove the stone was unsuccessful, so he has to go back in about a week for another procedure. It's crazy that such a tiny pebble in the wrong place can cause so much pain!

Are you enjoying some deep summer relax time? Leave a comment and let me know!

I'm sharing in this week's Wednesday Hodgepodge at From This Side of the Pond.

I host the Wednesday Quotes link-up every other Wednesday. Stop by and share a few thoughts and quotes on the current topic here: WQ - Celebrating Milestones. I host the Everyday Images photo link-up every other Thursday. And find the Scripture and a Snapshot link-up here every Sunday.

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