Beautiful June

We've arrived at June. The mid-month, and the best month, of the year. Now come the longest days and the world responds to all that light with growth and verdure. I long all year for June. Remembering that there will be June is what makes December, January, and February bearable. June takes too long to get here and it goes by too quickly once it does.

This year's June began with a bright sunrise in a clear blue sky, but it wasn't warm. It was 35° on Monday morning. The chilly mornings that have plagued us all spring held on through most of the week. Monday through Thursday the mornings were all in the 30s, barely above freezing, at dawn. I have certain expectations for June and one of them is warmth. Not heat. The heat, if we are to get any, will come in July and August. I want June to be a mild month with cool (not cold), dewy mornings, soft, balmy days, and long, lingering evenings. Now, if ever, come perfect days. That's all I want. Nature, unfortunately, doesn't always oblige.

Morning on the first of June.

Morning on the first of June.

Despite the chill, I went out right away that  morning and got to work. I had things to do and didn't want to wait. Things warmed up quickly. I began work wearing my heavy hoodie and within an hour was just in shirtsleeves. My big project of the day was cleaning up the chicken yard. After moving the fence last week, I thought I would get rid of a few dead trees and remove two large, half-dead multiflora rose bushes that had vined up into the trees. It turned out to be a bigger job than I anticipated. Those rose bushes were a misery to work with. I was snagged and tangled in thorny branches. I managed to get it all cleared away and thrown over the fence. Then I had a huge and thorny brush pile I needed to move out to be burned. But I didn't work on that then. I'd had enough of thorns for one day.

The chicken yard after clearing out the brush.

The thorny brush pile I cleared out.

The rest of the day turned out to be very pleasant. In the afternoon I planted more of my seedlings. We hadn't had rain in a while, and with all those newly planted seedlings, I had to water. That takes a long time and a lot of energy dragging the very long, very heavy hose across the whole garden.

Tuesday was a quick and mostly quiet day. I ran errands in the morning and then spent the rest of the day in the garden planting and watering. While I was planting flowers in the bed at the front of the house, a county assessor came by. He was young, probably a college student and this is his summer job, going house to house. He asked me some questions about the house and took some outdoor measurements. Potter County is doing its first reassessment of property values since 1977. According to the brochure he gave me, "the purpose of a reassessment is not to raise taxes. The purpose is to create an equitable distribution of the tax load." A few paragraphs later, the brochure says, "changing economic conditions have resulted in the development of inequities. These inequities are remedied by reappraising all properties to reflect current market levels." It goes on to say further down, "one-third of the property owners will see a decrease in their taxes, one-third will stay the same, and one-third will see an increase." Hmmm. Sounds like they are going to raise taxes on someone. I've never understood why I have to keep paying for something I already own. If I bought a pair of shoes twenty-six years ago for $50, but now the same shoes cost $100, they wouldn't come to me and make me pay more money for the ones I already own. Why is a house different? Maybe I just don't understand the system. Or maybe the system is wrong. Property values in the county may have risen, but our personal income hasn't kept pace with it. And the assessor didn't ask about all the things in this old house that need repairing, the constant output of funds just to keep it inhabitable. He should figure the cost of all of that into his reassessment of its value. After a half hour walking around the property, he filled in his forms and left and I returned to planting flowers and stewed over the whole business. I'm still stewing.

Soft June sunrise.

Moving the chicken yard fence left the rain barrel at the corner of the barn sort of exposed, so I decided to move it around to the side of the barn, out of view. And that turned into a rather involved project. That's what I did most of Wednesday morning. It meant altering the rain gutter that feeds the barrel.  That required hauling the ladder down to the barn. As long as I had the ladder down there, I thought I'd power wash the debris off the barn roof and clean out the gutter. That required borrowing the Shillig's power washer and a long hose from the big garden and hauling all of that down to the barn. And it meant spending a lot of time up on a ladder. I don't like ladders. I got soaked in the process. But I did okay.

In the afternoon I mowed. We're past dandelion time and now we are in clover. I always set the mower blades higher when the clover is in bloom. I like to see a lawn full of blooming clover. The bees like it too. It was very warm by the time I finished mowing, 80°, so I took a siesta before continuing my work. When I went out again in the afternoon, I felt brave enough to put some seeds directly in the ground, things that like to sprout in warm soil – cucumbers, beans, zucchini, pumpkins, and sunflowers. Our mornings might still be a little too chilly, but the days are long and warm and I have hopes these seeds will sprout and flourish.

Thursday started just above freezing at 35°, but by 9:00 it was 80° and it stayed there for the rest of the day. I spent the morning finishing the rain barrel job down at the barn. Then I worked at various jobs around the house, on the back porch, and in the woodshed. I went out again after lunch thinking I would weed for a while, but the sun was too intense, so I came in and took a little siesta. These daily temperature swings are confusing. To start the day in the 30s and then climb to the 80s, a 50° difference, is hard on the plants, and me too. I have to change clothes in the middle of the day, heavy overalls and a hoodie in the morning, shorts and a short-sleeved shirt in the afternoon. The weather needs to mellow out into something mild and steady. I went out again later, when the sun was lower and the shadows longer, and worked until dinner time.

The new rain barrel setup.

A while back Stacey and I began discussing plans to serve a mission. After considering several options, we've decided to do a home-based Family Search support mission called a VROC – Virtual Records Operation Center. We will serve for twelve months, for a minimum of twelve hours a week, working on our own schedule, doing online projects to help build the Family Search Tree. So we get to serve, but still be at home, still hold our current callings, still be with family, still keep the gardens and the flock going. It seems like a perfect fit.

 Friday morning was a perfect June morning. It was the first morning in a long time that we weren't near freezing. It was 45° at dawn and as soon as the sun was up over the hill, the temperature climbed rapidly. After doing some morning chores, I noticed a huge patch of buttercups blooming in a field on the hill above us and decided to take a walk up there to admire them. I went up the road and cut through a lower field to the edge of the buttercups. They were glorious. But I couldn't stop there. The sun was warm. The bobolinks were fluttering over the tall grass singing their buzzy electric sounding song. The woods beyond beckoned to me and I could not resist. I haven't been up to the woods in a long, long time. Apparently no one else has either. The paths are mostly overgrown with wild blackberry thickets. I was glad I had on my heavy canvas overalls. They were warm and making we work up a sweat, but they were also impenetrable to the blackberry thorns. 

Going up the Rapley Road.

The buttercups.

Into the thorny woods.

I walked up the thorny path and came out on the other side of the woods at the top of the hill to a field they'd just plowed and planted with corn. I followed along the edge of the field and then went back into the woods on a different path. This path was even more overgrown with blackberries. I had to abandon it partway and blaze my own trail through the trees. As I walked, I heard different birds singing all around me, mostly warblers whose songs all sound alike and never hold still long enough for me to identify them. Then I heard it. Off at the bottom edge of the woods, a wood thrush was singing. Of all the woodland birds, I love its song the most. I remembered Thoreau's love of the wood thrush. He wrote in his journal in June 1853, "This is the only bird whose note affects me like music. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It is a medicative draught to my soul. It is an elixir to my eyes and a fountain of youth to all my senses. It changes all hours to an eternal morning." I understand that. I made my way to a point where the singing seemed closest and stood there for ten minutes or more listening. I saw it fly between the trees. It isn't a brightly colored bird, it is all brown and buff, but I think instead of giving it dazzling plumage, God gifted it with a beautiful voice.

A wood thrush (not my photo).

I recorded it on my phone, but you have to listen closely to hear it.

After my encounter with the wood thrush. I headed back toward home. I came out of the woods above Burrell's and walked down to the road. I stopped at Burrell's pond and startled a pair of Common Mergansers with a dozen or more babies. They scuttled from the pond into the tall grass. I stopped to look at the upper beaver pond. It was full of ducks and geese. Then I came back to the house along the edge of the big garden where there is a patch of yellow hawkweed blooming on the bank. I came through the meadow and on to the house. When I got indoors, I quickly stripped out of my clothes to check for ticks. It's been a bad year for ticks. I almost didn't go on this walk because of that. I'm glad I went. I didn't find any ticks on me. I threw all my clothes to the wash anyway and dressed in cooler clothes and went back out into that glorious June morning.

Coming out of the woods.

On the road towards home.

The upper beaver pond.

Hawkweed on the bank.

This weekend was my 50 year high school class reunion. I didn't go, but I followed the proceedings on Facebook. They posted photos of some of the events. I didn't recognize anyone in the photos. They were all old people. I didn't know many of the kids in my enormous Naperville Central High School class of '76. At the reunion, they posted a list of classmates who have died. I knew nine people on that list, some casually, a few because we were in classes together, one because he bullied me. One was my dear friend Sally, a person I still think about at times. I'm still hoping that my close friends, who were (and I hope still are) members of the church, are planning to get together later in the year. I haven't heard much discussion about that reunion lately. We need to make it happen.

The forecast said that rain was coming later in the day yesterday. I had a lot of things planned and needed to get them done before it arrived. It was a big Planting Out Day in the big garden. Saturdays are good work days because I have extra workers to help me. I had tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and marigolds all waiting to go into the ground. I went out at 8:00 and started to set things out, getting ready to begin. The rain began at 8:30 a.m. I thought I'd go ahead and plant in the rain, but gave up after ten minutes. It stopped after fifteen minutes and the work commenced. The rain came in short spells the rest of the day, but when it wasn't raining, we worked. And we got a lot done. We planted tomatoes and set up their cages. We planted bell peppers and jalpeños. We put in two beds of brassicas – cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower and covered them with bird netting to keep the peacock from eating them. They are his favorite food. We planted rows of marigolds out on the farthest row of the garden and interspersed among the tomatoes. Kurt tilled a row with his tractor and we put down weed barrier. We will plant beans in that row. I had a great work crew, Stacey, Miriam, Hannah, Sarah, and a gang from next door, the Morrises and the Murdochs who are visiting the Shilligs. The children picked rocks after Kurt tilled. They all helped plant marigolds. There is still work to be done, but we accomplished so much and I'm grateful.

Picking up stones as Kurt tills.

Caging newly planted tomatoes.

Planting marigolds.

After that work was done, Miriam and Hannah put up gutter guards on the rain gutter at the barn for me. I'm so glad that's done. Now I can check that project off the list. We had a warning of a possible severe thunderstorm in the afternoon, but it never happened. We heard a distant rumble of thunder, but that was all.

Today it is very pleasant and June-like, 75°, blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The hills are green, the fields are full of tall grass and buttercups. Church was good. With the Shillig's visitors, we had more people there than usual and that's always nice. Our meetings went well. In Sunday School we are beginning a part of the Old Testament that I particularly love, the accounts of Samuel, Saul, and David. We are home now, getting ready to break our fast. The Shilligs are hosting a Sabbath Soiree this evening. Sometime between lunch and that, I hope to take a Sabbath nap. The week ahead looks promising – some good weather, some much needed rain, no more freezes or frosts. There's so much to do and I'm going to love doing it.