MIDSUMMER HAS ARRIVED

The Fourth of July celebrations have passed, but midsummer days have arrived to give us the “good ol’ summer time” we look forward to. Often called blueberry month, July is the heart of summer in Pennsylvania. Days are long and evenings pleasant. 

The solstice has also passed. Even though we know we’ve begun our long slide downhill to the short light days of December, we have much to enjoy. On the hillsides and fields, fresh hay drying in the heat of the sun is fragrant and sweet. Roses, lavender, honeysuckle and dianthus are also nature’s delightful perfumes spilling out into the air. 

                                        

There is movement and activity around us. Birds flutter in the bushes. Squirrels and chipmunks scamper over the ground. Swallows swoop and dive to catch insects in flight. Once darkness falls, fire flies dance above the ground putting on nature’s evening light show while bats take flight to snap up the pesky mosquitoes hovering in the air. 

July also brings plentiful fruits and vegetables. Berries have ripened and are ready for picking—blackberries, blue berries, raspberries, and wild strawberries. Apples, peaches, and pears are swelling on tree boughs. Vegetable gardens flourish, and those green beans and tomatoes we all anxiously waited for have finally arrived. But get ready. squash will overrun the land. Soon gardeners will try to pawn those zucchinis off on every neighbor and visitor they meet. They might even end up unannounced on your doorstep! 

Ah, yes. It’s midsummer in July and time to enjoy the height of the season while we porch or patio sit, enjoy our favorite beverage. . .and watch old man sun sink below the Pennsylvania mountains.

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HERE COMES SUMMER..with its sights, scents, and sounds!

In June, I patiently search for the first signs of summer.

Listen closely, and you can hear the birdsong at sunrise. It’s the doves at our house who start the calliope of song if we leave our bedroom windows open. The nosy robins are back, nesting under our deck and in the rhododendron. Their first fledglings have already been booted out of the nest and intermittently (and annoyingly) squawk, calling for a parent. The brazen sparrows have also returned and have kicked the bluebirds out of their nesting box. Only one lone hummingbird visits our feeder.

Rain in June is a silver spoon as the old adage goes. It’s the month when vegetation emerges and gardens in the North are planted which will yield bountiful crops throughout the next four months and into fall. This year, my bucket garden has been watered quite often by the gray clouds hovering in the sky. I decided to change it up a bit. I’m growing some herbs: lemon thyme, rosemary, oregano, and parsley. Every year I grow a plant of basil on the patio.

The flower of June is the rose which is my favorite because of its soft, layered petals and delicate scent.

I was lucky to be born on a scorching, 90+ degree, June day—the last one of the month—right in the middle of haying season, as my Dad used to point out with a slight grumble in his voice.

When June arrives, farmers push hard during the sweltering sunny days to get a hay field cut, dried, and baled. The sweet and intoxicating scent of newly mowed grass fills the air and forces everyone near to pause and enjoy it, even if the work of cutting, baling, and storing it is hot, intense, and tiresome.

Do you have favorite sights, scents, and sounds of summer?

As poet James Russell Lowell so aptly writes about the month:

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays: 

Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten…

                                    ~ James Russell Lowell – 1819-1891

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