blooms

It's been a strange growing season. The other day Allyn mentioned that the lilies on the bank are starting to appear. She said that they usually don't show up until July. It had seemed to her that blooming was late earlier in the year, but now things are blooming earlier than normal. The other day I saw some Queen Annes's Lace which you normally don't see until August.
The black locust trees are one of my favorites. They usually bloom at the end of May which they did in northern Vermont. They didn't bloom at all down here. If the irises flowered this year, I didn't see it.

road crews

Cows in the pastures. Deer in the fields in the evenings. Fox coming into our yard when making his rounds. He acted like he owned the place. Road crews of summer appearing.

lilies

Farmer's market and yard sales in full swing. Bunting for the Fourth of July appearing. Season of lilies underway.

dragonflies

Dragonflies appearing. Tiger swallowtail butterflies swirling in the back field. Summer stock opening in Weston and Dorset. Concerts in the park in Rutland. Clark stayed up through the whole performance the other night.

Distant mountains reflected
in the dragonfly's eye.
Issa

winter

It is now officially summer. It has actually been summer like for weeks now. But our neighbor Pete just had a load of wood delivered across the street. Winter is never really far away here on the other side of the creek.

bugs

Yesterday was the kind of day that people come to New England in the summer to experience. Driving home from the Zen Center at night, moths and bugs in the headlights. The nearly full moon rides very low in the sky this time of year with the sun being very high in the sky. The opposite, of course, is true in the winter.

hot

Ninety degrees yesterday. That's hot for Vermont. Parking cars in the shade. AC on. People wading in brooks and ponds.

noon

Summer solstice, longest day of the year. Kayaks on cars. Clothes flapping on a clothesline on a windy day.

It is the noon
Orioles are crying
The river flows on in silence.
Issa

heaven hovers low

From 5/28/10

The other day, Kathy Clarke and I drove along a ridgeline to the Eshqua Bog near Woodstock. Dappled sunlight on the dirt road and surrounding greenery. Idyllic vistas of hillside, forest, and field. This morning I drove the spine of the Green Mountains on Doug Blodgett's annual mourning dove survey. Full moon setting over the Bliss Farm. Steam rising over brooks and ponds. On both occasions there was the feeling, especially at the summits, that one was at the top of the world, and that heaven hovers low in the sky over the Green Mountain state. There was literally the feeling that one should hunch down in one's seat when driving along the hill tops lest one scrape up against the Pearly Gates or some such.
I thought about Montana and the Big Sky Country. The majestic vastness of that place takes one's breath away. Vermont is kind of the little sky country. There is a lot of beauty concentrated in a small amount of space. A goodly number of heaven's tailings seem to accumulate here.

June

Strawberries for sale at Woods Market in Brandon. Fireflies twinkling in the night.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
Zen page a day calendar

sometimes in June

Sometimes in June, when I see unearned dividends of dew hung on every lupine, I have doubts about the real poverty of the sands. On solvent farmlands, lupines do not even grow, much less collect a daily rainbow of jewels. If they did, the weed control officer, who seldom sees a dewy dawn, would doubtless insist that they be cut. Do economists know about lupines?
A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold

peonies

Biting into an apple as I sit before the peonies-that's how I'll die.
Shiki

morning shift

I don't usually do this, but I had to pass this along. We all got home on Sunday. Erin found out Sunday night, and Monday morning that Cartoons doesn't like to sleep unless he's being held. I got up on Monday morning about 4:00 to go to the bathroom, Erin and Cartoons were both up. I don't know who looked more dazed and confused. I offered to hold Cartoons to allow Erin to get a little sleep. This morning I got up at 3:30, and it was the same routine. I watched Cartoons and the sunrise so Erin could sleep.
I had a conference call with the United Way this morning. Mention was made of a meeting a couple of weeks from now from 1 to 3. I said I could probably attend if it was 1-3 PM, but if it was 1-3 AM, I probably couldn't make it.

tents

Butterflies, mayflies, garter snakes appearing. I saw a honey bee in the front yard for the first time in a long time, and by that I mean years. Spiders in the bathtub. Tents in back yards. We have one of our own (or Eliza does, anyway).

What is so rare

As a day in June.

Clark Kahle Jones, 6/3/16

thoughts

orange hawkweed

To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

William Wordsworth

season of birds

red-eyed vireo

The other morning Allyn remarked that there are a lot of bird sounds in the morning these days. There sure are. This is truly the season of birds here in Vermont. Every morning they announce to the world, "Here I am. This is where I live so stay away please." 

I'm no ornithologist, but the birds distinguish themselves in a variety of ways. Some are defined by their songs. The red-eyed vireo sings almost continuously. The songs of the veery and the wood thrush are hauntingly beautiful coming out of the depths of the woods in the evening. A local woodpecker has made its presence known by banging away on the large metal casing in a nearby pasture.

Some birds are remarkable for their plumage; the goldfinches, bluebirds, and orioles come to mind. There are others with their own distinctive behaviors. The swallows beckon with the grace and power they demonstrate aloft. The prosaic house wren is known not only by its call, but also for its irritating habit of filling up bird houses with small sticks so they can't be used by other birds.

As with all the seasons in Vermont, the season of birds is a short one. By August the mornings will be much quieter as the nesting periodwill be essentially over, and some of the species will start to make the long journey south for the winter