Summer's Ripening Breath

The Thayn Family Reunion that took up most of the previous week, was one of the Big Events of the summer season. We were busy during those days. There was always something going on. It ended on Monday as they all departed for adventures I did not accompany them on. And then they all went home. After they left, things here settled into that sad quiet that comes after the party is over. It didn't help that Monday was a gloomy day, gray clouds, drizzly rain. I spent the day meandering about the house, feeling a bit lost.

Every time I walked in or out of the kitchen, I found myself pausing to stare at the big calendar on the wall. Every month, Miriam makes a calendar on a whiteboard and fills in everything going on – birthdays, anniversaries, doctor's appointments, haircut appointments, special events. It helps us keep track of things and fit our schedules together. I like seeing the days laid out like that. It gives me things to look forward to with anticipation (or dread sometimes). But it also reminds me how quickly time is passing as we tick off each day, each event, each appointment.

Miriam's kitchen wall calendar.

It has always been in my nature to mourn the passing of things before they occur. Even as a child, I remember feeling a twinge of sadness at the start of summer break, knowing that it would be over too quickly. My anticipation of events like birthdays, holidays, reunions, and summer was, and still is, always tinged with a touch of melancholy. It makes me appreciate things, savoring the moments, noticing the details, fixing them more firmly in my memory, because I know they will soon be gone. It might seem odd to some, this mixing of happiness and sadness. I suspect that most people live more in the happy sphere of existence. I am not one of them.

In the garden, although there is still so much yet to come – vegetables, apples, high summer flowers – already the lupines are in decline and the brief season for peonies, poppies, and June roses is half gone. I am an obsessive dead-header, snipping off spent blossoms, trying to prolong the bloom time of the early summer flowers. But I have to be careful not to be overzealous. If I deadhead for too long, the plants will fade out anyway without setting seed. I have to let them go so I can enjoy their offspring next year.

Peonies: Sarah Bernhardt, Sorbet, and ?.

Corn poppies.

The lilies are blooming now.

Later in the day on Monday, the drizzle let up long enough for me to work a while outdoors. I weeded half the onion bed out in the big garden. I did some weeding in my raised bed garden. While walking through the flowerbeds, I saw a snake. It surprised me as it slid away. We don't see snakes very often around here. This one was an Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis). I've seen it several times since then. It's about a foot long. Although they feed mainly on earthworms and amphibians, they also eat mice and voles. I'm hoping this one has a preference for voles, there are a lot of them this year.

After a brief respite from the rain on Monday, I saw on Tuesday morning that most of the rest of the week, starting that afternoon, was supposed to be wet. I had to mow the lawn. The grass was so high, there was no way it could wait until after the next round of rain. Kurt was using the mower that morning, so I couldn't begin until 11:00 a.m. By then the sky was already growing dark and it looked like rain would begin at any moment. I mowed as fast as I could and finished at 1:30. I beat the rain, but mowing fast with tall grass like that, I didn't do a very good job. It looked sloppy with clumps and missed corners. The rain arrived at 4:00 p.m., just as I was finishing up the last of my outdoor work and putting my tools away. It went on intermittently for the next three days. All this rain is a mixed blessing. It helps everything grow quickly – flowers and vegetables, weeds and mushrooms. There are mushrooms coming up all over the place. But it also makes the developing apples swell too quickly so that many of them split open and drop off. And it makes the tall grass in the orchard top heavy so that it falls over and forms mats that will be difficult to mow at the end of the month when I do the first cutting. And everything gets swampy. It also makes me moody to have to sit indoors when all I want is to be out enjoying the world in June.

Hundreds of little mushrooms in my green bean bed.

When I went out on Wednesday morning I stepped onto the back porch stairs and took a deep breath. It had rained all through the night. The air was warm and humid. It smelled like heaven. The mock orange out in the hedge is blooming and the air was fragrant with its perfume. I know many people don't like humid weather, but I do. I like the way it feels in my lungs and on my skin. In Japan this kind of weather is called mushiatsui [むしあつい in hiragana, 蒸し暑い, mushi 蒸 is the kanji for steam, atsui 暑 is the kanji for heat]. June is a very mushiatsui month in Japan. It is when the rainy season tsuyu 梅雨, which means plum tree rain, sets in.

The old mock orange out in the hedge.

I spent an hour that morning catching snails and slugs. This wet weather has been ideal for their proliferation. They have been devouring many of my plants. I walked through the gardens with a bowl of salt water, picking them off the plants and dropping them in. Perhaps a little cruelly, I sang a song some children taught me in Japan about snails, which are called dendenmushi and katatsumuri in Japanese. The song says:

Snail, snail,
Where is your head?
Stick out your horns,
Stick out your antennae,
Stick out your head!

We had more work done on the living room on Wednesday. A crew installed new wiring for a ceiling light and fixed the faulty wiring to the front porch light. It will be nice to have a ceiling light in the living room that we can turn on with a wall switch. Aside from the dining room and kitchen, none of the rooms have permanent lighting fixtures. Now we just have to find a light that we like. Meanwhile, there is just a bulb hanging there.

And there was light!

I love it when the forecast is wrong. The rain predicted they would fall all day on Wednesday held off until evening. I had time to get a lot done in the garden. I spent hours on my knees weeding one of the onion patches. Then I moved on to weed the dahlia bed. By the time I was done, my knees were aching and the back of my neck was sunburned, but I felt good about accomplishing so much. At 5:00 p.m. the rain finally came and it arrived in a storm – thunder, lightning, wind, and pouring rain. It was very dramatic. The storm abated, but the rain went on through the night.

Thursday morning was lovely. Mornings after a night of rain usually are. I took a long walk before sunrise. When I got back from that, I spent time collecting more snails and slugs. No matter how many I catch, the next morning there are just as many. I had errands to run that day, which meant a trip to Wellsville. When I got back from that, I intended to work outdoors, but the rain dissuaded me. It wasn't constant or heavy, but frequent enough to be annoying. It let up a bit later so I could do a bit of weeding and plant some sunflower seeds. When Stacey got home, we picked strawberries. I love strawberry season.

Stacey picking strawberries.

It's been a rather reptilian week. The Shillig grandchildren next door came running over to tell us there was a turtle on their back porch and they wanted me to see it. I went over. It was an Eastern Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta picta). They are an aquatic species. I don't know what it was doing so far from water. We drove it up to Burrell's pond and let it go.

As soon as I got back from that, it began to rain again. It rained pretty hard for the rest of the evening and into the night. People are joking a lot online about the amount of rain we've had. For example:

We passed the Summer Solstice on Friday at 10:42 p.m. EDT. It marked the longest day of the year, although the moment of its occurrence was after dark here. At that moment, the northern hemisphere of the earth tilted closest to the sun. Above the Arctic Circle the sun never set and they had twenty-four hours of daylight. Here at 41°52'N, 77°50'E, the sun rose at 5:35 a.m. and set at 8:49 p.m., giving us fifteen hours and fourteen minutes of official daylight, although the half light of dawn and dusk made it longer. Since ancient times the solstice has been celebrated by various cultures. I keep my own traditions on the day. I make sure to be up early to enjoy the morning twilight and watch the sunrise. And I watch the sunset and linger in the evening twilight until the darkness comes. It's a happy/sad celebration for me. I love the long days of the year, the earth bathed in light, the explosion of life that comes with it. But at that pivot point in the solar cycle that comes at the solstice, I also mourn because, on the moment after it passes, we begin to tilt away from the sun toward the dark days again.

Sunrise on the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge.

This year the solstice sunrise was not very impressive. I went out before dawn and took a seat on the bench in the garden and waited. The sky was pretty for a while, but as the sun approached the horizon, clouds moved in. I didn't see the sun until later in the morning.

Just before sunrise on the Summer Solstice.

It turned out to be a fine day. I spent most of the day cleaning the back porch and the woodshed. They are two places that tend to accumulate things. I consider them part of my domain and I like to keep them tidy. When Stacey got home we ran some errands up in Wellsville. Dinner was our traditional Friday Homemade Pizza á la Hannah. The Thayns arrived at 8:00 p.m. They were here for a very short, one night visit so they could go to Rachel's high school reunion yesterday.

We had a bit of excitement on the Rapley Road on Friday evening. Our neighbors up the road, the Paisleys, have (had) a beaver pond in the woods by their house. It covered at least two acres and was probably almost a hundred years old. The dam broke Friday evening. The water rushed through the woods and onto the Rapley Road. It flooded the road and ran down through Rapley Hollow. It washed over the Goodenough's driveway, flooded the thorn wood across the road from the Shilligs, and our neighbors, the Peffer's, yard before running though the culvert under highway 49 and into the Genesee stream. I'm sorry that pond is gone. It was very pretty. I haven't hiked back to see it in years. And now it is gone. I hope the beavers rebuild the dam.

We had a solstice bonfire. I didn't plan it as part of a ritual or anything. We just had a large pile of stuff to burn and the Thayns were here, so we burned it. Maybe I'll add a bonfire to my regular solstice observance.

Sunset on the Summer Solstice.

Our Solstice bonfire.

Saturday morning, the first morning of summer, was just as it should be. It was sunny. The sky was bright blue with big white clouds floating by. The morning was fresh and dewy and the day warmed up quickly. The air was filled with bird music – the soft song of the mourning doves, the mixed up melodies of the brown thrashers, and robins, warblers, and the obnoxious peacock. I had to run up to the dairy for milk before breakfast and the drive was lovely. Stacey made a big breakfast for everyone – cinnamon rolls, fried ham steak, scrambled eggs. The aroma of all of that filled the house and made the morning even nicer. Outside, the world smelled like mock orange. Summer truly is the best time of the year.

The opium poppies have begun to bloom.

The day was pure summer. The temperature rose to 85°, a veritable heatwave for these parts. It was so warm, I dug a pair of shorts out the bottom drawer of my dresser. Sarah came over with a bowl of food for the pigs. While she was here, we harvested garlic scapes. I also picked a batch of cilantro for her. She, like several other family members, likes cilantro. I do not. It self-seeds and comes up all over my garden. After that, I spent some time weeding and deadheading. While I was outside working, Stacey worked on putting up drywall in the living room. Sarah and Miriam helped her. The room is coming along bit by bit.

Putting up drywall.

The Thayns went to Rachel's 20 year class reunion that afternoon. It seems impossible that it could be twenty years, but I guess next year is my 50 year reunion so… Rachel's graduating class was sixty-five students. Fourteen showed up for the reunion. I knew most of them. I began subbing at the school in Rachel's senior year. They held the reunion at the park in Genesee. Rachel got to catch up with some old friends. There was talk of my friends getting together next year for our 50th. My graduating class, Naperville Central High Class of '76, was huge. I didn't know most of my classmates. But I did have a tight group of friends from church. It would be so great if we could get together. Next year in Naperville!

The Northern Potter Class of 2005, twenty years later.

We went down to the Foster's house for dinner. Sarah made the garlic scapes that I picked for her into pesto. It was fabulous. In addition to the pesto, she had grilled bread, and tortellini salad. After dinner, the Thayns went home.

Garlic scape pesto.

This morning was a perfect summer Sabbath morning. I took a walk before dawn. Actually I didn't walk much. I went down and opened the barn, fed the chickens, and then came up to garden. It was warm, already 70°. I took my shoes off and walked barefoot in the dewy grass. I don't go barefoot very often, deep programing from childhood and a mother who didn't like dirty feet. It felt luxurious. I sat for a long time on the bench in my garden and just watched the morning unfold. It was quiet except for the birds. There were honeybees and bumblebees out early, visiting the poppies. They love poppy pollen. The peace and serenity of the morning was like healing balm. I felt refreshed. Then I came in to shower and dress and get ready for church.

After having such a big congregation last week with the visiting Thayn family (64 people!), our congregation shrank back to normal size again. There were just twenty-one of us today, but our meetings were good. 

Summer has come and it really feels like it. It's 87 ° right now with 81% humidity. I love it. We are under a heat advisory from now until Wednesday. For temperatures to be abnormally warm here, we only need to hit 90° and it looks like we'll get close for most of the week. I plan to enjoy every second of. Summer is supposed to be hot.

We're having a heatwave! 

Right now, I'm thinking about a Sabbath nap. It's very calm and quiet. The air is still. It feels like nap weather to me. Maybe I'll have lunch first. If I can stay awake that long.