The Last Week of Spring

Today is the summer solstice. Spring, such as it was, is over now. I took a look back over the season, from March 21 to today. Our last snowfall was on April 20th. The last frost was May 22nd, although we came close again on Tuesday morning when we dropped to 36°. The spring of 2026 was far too wintry. Many of our spring flowers were wiped out by the numerous frosts we had. It was a disappointing spring in many ways – no lilacs, blighted tulips and daffodils. It had its moments of glory, but I wish there had been more of them. Even its final week was a letdown. It was chilly most of the week.

So now we've come to the summer solstice. And it isn't so impressive either. We barely hit 75° today. This is a day I love and hate. I celebrate it as the longest day, the beginning of summer, but also mourn it. Tomorrow the days will start to grow shorter again. Summer will turn out to be far too brief. It always is. I looked at the long term predictions for the summer in the Farmers' Almanac and the Old Farmers' Almanac hoping for some good news. The Farmers' Almanac says we will "experience a mix of warm-to-hot conditions, with periods of high humidity and scattered thunderstorms." Seems like a pretty safe prediction, like one of those silly horoscopes in the newspapers, vague enough to come true no matter what.

The Old Farmers' Almanac says it will be cool and dry. Everyone else on the eastern side of that map shows hot except for that yellow patch, which is right where we live. Of course. I hope they're wrong. I'm wholly in favor the Farmers' Almanac's forecast this time. Sorry Old guys. NOAA says we have a 42-60% chance for a warmer than usual summer, and a 50% chance for normal rainfall. But it looks like an El Niño is forming in the Pacific and that could change everything. I guess we'll just take it as it comes. What else can we do?

Things happened down in the barn last week. On Monday I opened the door to the inner pen so the young chickens could begin to integrate with the main flock. That resulted in the usual mayhem as the pecking order went into a period of adjustment. Chickens have rigid rules as to who sits where in the dominance lineup. The first few days there was a lot of bullying, but things settled down by the end of the week.

The young chickens venturing out of their pen for the first time.

I also have an old hen that has gone broody. She made a nest on the floor of the coop, in a corner, and has been aggressively defending her right to sit on eggs. So I decided to let her. I marked six eggs to keep track of them since other hens keep adding eggs to the nest. She started setting on Monday, so sometime around July 6th, they should hatch if all goes well. I haven't had a lot of success with hens hatching eggs. I hope it works this time.

The broody hen.

Tosh got a membership at the gym, the Wellness Center by the hospital, and added some of us onto his family plan. So I now have a gym membership. I'm not a work-out-at-the-gym sort of person. I've gone before, but I get bored exercising for exercising's sake. And I'm always embarrassed when the old lady next to me on a stationary bike is going twice as fast for twice as long as me. Or when I strain to bench fifty pounds when the skinny guy over there looks like he can lift a small car. But last week I decided not to waste this membership. Miriam also has one and she goes several times a week, so I've been tagging along. Monday was the first time. One nice thing about the Wellness Center is that you can find a time, usually midday on a weekday, when there is hardly anyone there, and that's when we go. I'm a shy person and I like having the locker room all to myself. Miriam showed me some things to do out in the gym. I ride a stationary bike for twenty minutes and it informs me each time that I burned twenty calories, a calorie a minute feels disappointing. Miriam showed me the routine she follows with the dumbbells and I tried it once and got a knot in a muscle in my upper arm right away, so I nixed that. I ride the bike and then retire back to the locker room and go into the steam room. That's really why I go to the gym. So far I've been the only one in the steam room, which is nice again for shyness reasons. I set the timer for twenty minutes and sit and sweat and it is wonderful. When I get out, I take a cold shower, which is shocking, but refreshing. I think we need to build a sauna at our house. Until then, I guess I'll keep going to the gym to "work out."

When we got back from the gym on Monday, I did the chores and then went to work in the garden for a while. It was a cool day, and not very sunny, so I didn't work long, just pulled some weeds. We'd had a pretty big thunderstorm the night before with lots of rain, so I didn't have to water anything, which was nice.

Morning.

That cold 36° Tuesday morning I mentioned above, as I waited for it to warm up a little, I binged a bit on Bach – the Brandenburg Concertos, all six of them. I know I write about Bach a lot, but he occupies a large space in my brain. I crave his music and usually cannot go for more than a few days without listening to some. I don't know why my soul resonates so strongly to it. I like to think that we might have been friends in the pre-existence. He did not have an easy life. He was orphaned at the age of ten and had to go live with an older brother and his family. He moved from job to job  teaching, writing, and performing music for men who did not often appreciate his genius. He and his first wife, Maria Barbara, had seven children, three of whom died in their first year. Maria Barbara died suddenly while Bach was away. He married again, to Anna Magdalena, and they had thirteen more children, only six of whom survived to adulthood. At his death, Bach's family was left impoverished and his estate, including his music manuscripts, was divided among his adult children. His music was out of fashion by then and was sold off piecemeal to various people. Some of it even ended up in a shop to be used to wrap cheese. About half of his compositions were lost. Judging from what has survived, it is a terrible loss to humanity. Bach was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Johns Church in Leipzig. Many years later, when his music began to be rediscovered and appreciated, they tried to find his body and reinter it at St. Thomas Church, where he worked for so long. The body they determined was his and buried there probably isn't really his, but at least there is a monument to honor the greatest composer the human race has ever produced.

Bach's tomb(?).

By the time I finished Concerto No. 6 in B-flat major, the temperature had reached 65° and I went out to work. I spent some time pinching the tomatoes in my hoop house. They are already forming suckers that need to be curtailed. Then I weeded. There are always weeds to pull. 

Early morning sunshine.

Mornings here are usually very quiet. I'm always the first one up and it feels like I have the world to myself for a while. I love to go out and walk as dawn breaks. Sometimes I like to go to the garden and sit and contemplate profound things. One morning last week, I sat in the early morning sunshine and watched the clouds moving overhead, and that started me pondering on how things move on a grand scale. The earth spins at 773 miles per hour as it revolves around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour, while the sun and its solar system moves at 450,000 miles per hour through the Milky Way Galaxy that is moving at 390,000,000 miles per second through space. If we could actually feel all that movement, I think we'd be constantly dizzy or motion sick. Instead, we just ride along, oblivious passengers. It makes me wonder where it all is heading to and brings to me a firm conviction as the prophet Alma stated that "all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." (Alma 30:44)

The spiraling vortex of the solar system moving through space.

I harvested my spinach on Tuesday. I don't always have success growing spinach. I tend to wait too long and it bolts before I can harvest it. It was starting to bolt this time, but I managed to pick a good batch. The thing about spinach is, you think you have a lot until you cook it and it turns into a single serving. I gave this spinach to Sarah to freeze dry. I planted wax beans in the bed where the spinach was.

Our first and only picking of spinach.

All that spinach reduced to two jars when freeze dried.

Several years ago, in the vegetable garden, a patch of nigella sprang up in the narrow gap along the edge of one of my raised beds. I don't know how the seeds got there. I grow nigella out in the long border, but somehow it migrated to this seemingly inhospitable spot. I let it grow and it produced the loveliest nigella blossoms in the whole of my gardens. I let it reseed every year and every year it grows and blooms and I love it.

Nigella growing in the gap.

We had rain during the night on Wednesday, so the world on Thursday was fresh and sparkling when I went out. I love it when it rains at night. But that sparkling moment was brief. The clouds soon moved in again and the rest of the day the weather couldn't decide on whether it wanted rain or sunshine, so I decided to ignore its fickle flipping back and forth and make it a day of rest. I had errands to run anyway. I drove up to Wellsville to the chapel to take care of some business there. I went to Runnings for a few items including a flat of portulaca. I have patches of colchicums in the long border that grow big strappy leaves in the spring that die back in early summer and leave a big bare spot. The colchicum flowers will emerge in the fall, so I need to fill that bare spot after the leaves have withered. I've found that portulaca does that best. It grows low to the ground, has bright flowers, and when the colchicums bloom, their flowers grow right up through it and are supported by it.

Portulaca waiting to be planted.

Thursday morning we had an unusual visitor in the yard, a snapping turtle. Hannah spotted it trudging across the front yard by the chicken yard fence. I don't know where it thought it was heading, but the only water available in that direction is Miriam's lily pond, and it wasn't welcome to set up home there. I caught and took it down to the ditch that goes under the road and into the beaver pond and released it. It didn't stay in the ditch. Later, we found it trying to cross the highway, headed for the beaver pond. I picked it up and carried it across the road and let it go on the bank of the pond. It was very stinky and not grateful. It wanted to bite me the whole time I was helping it.

Our morning visitor.

We had terrific wind all afternoon on Thursday. It blew limbs out of the maple trees near the house. It blew the netting off the brassicas out in the big garden and lifted and crumpled ground cloth in parts of the garden. I was glad when it finally let up later toward evening. We had to go out and clean up and fasten things down again.

We are in poppy time now. Every day I go out and chose my favorite of the day. Sometimes it's hard to pick just one. These are my favorites for Wednesday and Friday.

Wednesday's favorite.

Friday's favorite.

Friday morning was another very pretty sunrise. I went down to the beaver pond and stood for a while watching the day approach. I was glad to see the beavers working in the pond. We hadn't seen them in a while. The water level in both the upper and lower ponds is low and we were worried the beavers had abandoned them. But there they were, working away, busy as beavers.

Sunrise over the beaver pond on Friday.

The long border, Friday morning.

I spent the morning on Friday weed whacking and mowing. After mowing the orchard, I did an inspection of the apple trees. The trees look great – at least their leaves do. That's what most of them have this year, just leaves. But looking closely, I found some apples! The majority of the trees have no fruit. A couple have one or two apples. The Golden Russet tree has about ten. The big King of Tompkins County tree has maybe fifty. The apples are all small and green and they still might fall off, but as of now, we will get a few apples this fall. Maybe enough for one batch of apple sauce.

Little green apples.

The weather was fickle through the afternoon. It was sunny then windy then rainy then sunny again. I was glad I got the mowing done early. The day ended with our traditional Hannah Homemade Pizza and a very dramatic sky. 

Evening sky, Friday.

Yesterday was the last day of spring and it departed with a perfect flourish – sunshine, a nice breeze, pleasant temperature, and baby robins in the garden. I don't know what nest they came from, but there were two of them hanging around in the garden all day. Their parents were attentive, bringing them a constant supply of food. The babies were  not  afraid of me and wandered quite close to where I was working.

One of my morning garden companions.

My first job that morning was in the asparagus patch. I've been vigilant about keeping it under control and weeded this year. Usually about now, the stalks get tall enough that they flop over, making it impossible to get in under them to weed. Then the weeds, especially the sunchokes, grow up and engulf them. I put up poles and used string to keep the stalks upright. I spend a couple of hours every two weeks pulling up weeds. It's hard work, hard on my knees anyway, but it's rewarding to see it all tidied up.

The weeded asparagus patch.

My second job was working on lawn chairs. We found two old metal lawn chairs in the basement of the Foster's house next door and I decided to restore them. They are sturdy, but rusty. I spent an hour with a wire brush trying to remove rust and flaky paint. That got old very quickly and I decided to jump right to the finish. The spray paint I had, good old Rustoleum, said it was primer and paint in one and would cover and seal rusty metal. So I painted them. They look a little rough, but much better than they were. And they are serviceable, and that was what mattered most.

The chairs before.

Painted and in place by the lily pond.

The rest of the afternoon, after a short nap, I spent weeding. The weather was so fine, it made weeding a pleasure. I wanted to stay out in the sunshine until it was gone, and that's what I did. After dinner Miriam, Hannah, and I went out for a walk as the sun went down to bid springtime good-bye. In the morning, it would be summer.

I took a longer walk this morning to greet the new season. It was chilly, just 48°, but the morning was quiet and the sunrise was lovely. I stopped to listen to the catbird singing, then made my way through the orchard, down to the beaver pond, then up the road to Burrell's pond. On my way back, I stopped to admire and smell the fabulous old rose that grows by the Burrell's house. Then I came home and got ready for church.

Dawn approaching through the orchard.

Down at the beaver pond.

Up to Burrell's pond.

Burrell's old rose.

We are home from church now. Our meetings were good. Stacey was one of the speakers and she gave a great talk. Miriam and Hannah have gone down to have lunch with Sarah, so Stacey and I are eating alone. This evening we are going over to Shillig's for a Sabbath Soiree. It looks like the first week of summer will be about the same as the last week of spring. The weather will be mild with ample rain. I'm hoping things heat up a bit soon. Summer needs to be hot. At least above 80°, please.