Leaving June

We had some hot weather during the last two weeks. The temperature rose into the 80's and even the 90's some days. We needed rain badly. For several weeks, day after day the forecast gave me hope – 50% chance, 70% chance, 80% chance – and yet it never came. The lawn was turning brown, the grass, crisp. Only the clover was green. Its flowers brightened the otherwise sear expanse. I didn’t need to mow – the grass wasn’t growing. Usually I need to mow twice a week in June. For days I watered what I could in the garden by hand, dragging the hose out as far as it would reach and carrying the watering can to places beyond that. My friends that farm were worried. The first cutting of hay was done, dried, and baled, but no rain means the fields stop growing and that means fewer cuttings this season. Every day the sky would tease. It would cloud up. I’d hear distant thunder. I’d feel a drop or two of rain. Then it would go away and sun would resume baking the land. June is usually not like this. August might be hot and dry, but not June. These are supposed to be the lush days. It reminded me of the years I spent gardening in Southern California when the heat would scorch everything and I had to water twice a day sometimes to keep my garden from dying. That’s not how I garden here – normally.

Clover in the lawn.

Normal is not a word I use to describe much of anything these days. I keep hearing talk of what the New Normal will be and it sounds like a euphemism to mask our seriously abnormal conditions. And just when I think things can’t get any stranger, they do. I’m reminded of an excellent book I read years ago called A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman, one of my favorite historical authors. Things became very abnormal then. In that century the Black Death wiped out one third of the population. There was political turmoil as Europe was embroiled in The Hundred Years War. The climate changed as The Medieval Warm Period shifted into what is now called The Little Ice Age. And people went crazy. There were riots. Bands of brigands roamed the countryside terrorizing towns and villages. The Church (there was only the Catholic Church in Europe then) was torn apart by The Great Schism. Antisemitism grew and Jewish communities were attacked and destroyed across Europe. Strange groups of religious fanatics, the Flagellants, marched from city to city, stripped to the waist, scourging themselves with whips. An outbreak of St. Vitus’ Dance spread across Europe, which caused thousands of people to dance uncontrollably for days, weeks, and even months until they collapsed from exhaustion and died. A nihilistic Cult of Death emerged as people believed the world was ending. It was the age of the Danse Macabre. That was seven hundred years ago, but a lot of it sounds kind of familiar, almost like reading the news headlines some mornings.

The Black Death, Flagellants, and The Danse Macabre.

And yet, despite the sense of doom that overshadowed that time, they survived. Not only did they survive, they produced some great and glorious things. It was also the age of Dante Alighieri, Geoffrey Chaucer, and John Wycliff who gave us The Divine Comedy, The Canterbury Tales, and the first English Bible. Johannes Gutenberg introduced the printing press to Europe and the Age of the Book began. Great Gothic buildings were erected that still amaze us with their beauty. It gives me hope to know that out of an age of chaos and destruction when so many people thought it was the end of the world, the craziness subsided, humanity endured, and civilization advanced. The next century saw the High Middle Ages flow into the Renaissance. Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci were their New Normal. It would be nice if our present society can rise above our present abnormality to that kind of normalcy. I hope.

I’ve learned a lot about hope from gardening. Over the decades as I’ve tried to nurture some small piece of this planet, I sometimes have great successes and often utter failures. I make mistakes and learn from them (sometimes it takes a while). I’ve developed a measure of patience (sometimes it wears thin). But most of all I’ve learned to hope. In a good and prosperous year, I hope for more like it to come. In a disastrous year, I hope that next year will be better. Even when I suffer disappointment year after year, there is always hope enough to get me to try again and not give up. That hope helps me persist and eventually brings me rewards. Sometimes the reward is as small as the joy I feel when a single flower I’ve waited years to see finally blooms. Sometimes the reward is as huge as a ton of apples when the harvest has been good. I have a reasonable expectation that things will be good again someday. That’s hope.

Finally after weeks of teasing, rain came on Tuesday evening. A thunderstorm blew in and blessed us with a quarter inch of rain. When I went out on Wednesday morning, the world was refreshed. The lawn was already greening again. The once dry soil of my garden was damp and soft. The plants I’d had to nurse to keep them from wilting were revived. The dust of weeks was washed away and everything was vivid and sparkling clean. Another storm came through on Thursday afternoon and gave us another quarter inch of rain. A third storm arrived yesterday and dropped another half inch. That’s a total of a whole inch of much needed rain over three days. Now the temperature has returned to milder levels. It looks like June, what’s left of it, is on its way to normalcy again – at least it is in the natural world – here in this place. I can’t say as much for people and other places.

The floral world is shifting to high summer now. Along the roadsides, the dame’s rocket has been replaced with daisies, yellow trefoil, and pink and white mallows. In my garden, the peonies are almost through their flowering. The rain knocked most of their top heavy blossoms to pieces. The common poppies are winding down, but still lovely. The flamboyant opium poppies have opened. They are the biggest of the poppies I grow.

Some of my peonies.

Common poppies.

Opium poppies.

The Sweet Williams (Dianthus barbatus) are at their peak right now. They are related to pinks and carnations and are lovely, fragrant little flowers. I’ve always wondered why they are called Sweet Williams. No one seems to know for sure. The flower first appeared with that name in 1596 in the Catalogue by John Gerard (its full and amazing title is Catalogus arborum, fruticum, ac plantarum tam indigenarum, quam exoticarum, in horto Johannis Gerardi civis et chirurgi Londinensis nascentium). Some etymologist believe that “William” is simply a corruption of oeillet, the French word for carnation. I like to imagine a different origin. John Gerard had five children, but only one child, a daughter, lived to adulthood. I like to think that perhaps one of his other children was a son named William who loved Dianthus barbatus and his father named them in his memory.

Sweet Williams.

John Gerard (1545-1612)

Sweet Williams.

Out in the vegetable garden, what was left of the radishes, spinach, and the first planting of lettuce have all bolted. I pulled them up and fed them to the pigs. I spent an hour one day thinning the carrots. I dread thinning them and usually procrastinate doing it until it’s too late. I always over plant them and I have to pull up so many or they get too crowded and don’t do well. I was good this time and got it done and it looks like we’ll have a good crop. The cucumber, squash, and pumpkin seeds I sowed to replace plants lost to the frost have sprouted and are growing quickly. The tomatoes are blooming. The broccoli are forming heads. There are peas on the vines, but none of the pods are fat enough to pick yet. In the orchard, I found that the last frost did damage some apples that have now dropped. Those that remain are plumping up. It looks like the apple harvest will be moderate instead of fantastic.

The vegetable garden.

Broccoli beginning.

Peas underway.

Apples plumping.

One of my chief delights these days is my morning walks. I don’t walk far and I don’t walk fast. I don’t do it to get physical exercise for my body. I do it to invigorate my soul. In those early hours when the sun is just rising, the human world is still at rest and quiet, but the animal world is active and noisy. There are birds singing. The bullfrogs are thrumming. There are squirrels already raiding the bird feeders. As I walk, I usually startle a rabbit or two. One morning there was a deer drinking at the beaver pond. I see ducks and geese and herons and a dozen different songbirds. My usual route is to go out the back door, across the lawn and along the path between the long border and the vegetable garden, through the orchard and then down to the beaver pond. I walk along the road, sometimes as far as Burrell’s and then come back by the beaver pond, through my meadow or on our road, and then home again. It takes me about forty-five minutes. I always take my camera. I probably spend more time standing still than walking.

Scenes from morning walks: through the garden.

Scenes from morning walks: through the orchard.

Scenes from morning walks: deer in the beaver pond.

Scenes from morning walks: the beaver pond.

Scenes from morning walks: cedar waxwing.

Scenes from morning walks: Burrell's pond.

Scenes from morning walks: Burrell's barn.

Scenes from morning walks: headed home.

Scenes from morning walks: home again.

June will end in two more days. I am sad to see her go. There were some unexpected turns during the month, but it looks like her last days will be glorious. July always begins with a flourish of excitement as we celebrate Independence Day. The Thayns and the Fosters are coming to celebrate with us and Kohl (Kurt and Julie’s daughter) and her children are already here. With the nation in its present state, I feel more keenly than ever our need to understand and truly appreciate and celebrate our liberty and our rights. Many, I think, have forgotten or were never taught to value what we’ve been given as a nation by our wise Founders. Our celebration here will be traditional. We’ll have good food, fun games, and fireworks, but I hope to also add some serious reflection on the principles of freedom we have taken for granted and use it as an opportunity to teach the younger generation a little about what makes America great. Have a happy Independence Day.

America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!