summer visitors II

Cows are here for the summer, too. They'll be around longer than the kids and grandkids. Wish it was the other way around.

summer visitors

season of shadows

We've had a succession of sunny days. The shadows of summer clouds on the Green Mountains is an iconic sight. Vermont has a lot of big trees and dirt roads which bring about sun-dappled scenes like the one above.

goldfinches

Goldfinches seen blasting around in the back. Trucks and trailers from Celebrations Rentals, a company specializing in weddings and events, seemingly everywhere right now. The summer road construction season is in full swing.

appearing

Black-eyed Susans appearing. Heard the call of a wood thrush yesterday. One of the most beautiful sounds of summer.

https://musicofnature.com/video/wood-thrush/

summer solstice

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

ordinary

Summer vehicles on the roads in Vermont. Saw a group of motorcycles driving by on Rte 133 the other day. There must have been 100 of them. Campers and winnebagos prevalent. Cow vetch is flowering. Cow vetch is about as humble a plant as could be. Even its name sounds like a pejorative. Wikipedia says that, "It occurs on other continents as an introduced species where it is a common weed. It often occurs in disturbed habitats including old fields and roadside ditches."

But that's not the end of the story. Wikipedia also says that, "Cow vetch is widely used as a forage crop for cattle, and is beneficial to other plants because like other leguminous plants it enriches the soil in which it grows by its nitrogen-fixing properties." Cow vetch is also much appreciated by bees and butterflies as a source of nectar. The plant is also used to curb erosion.

It is also beautiful with its variegated shades of pink and purple. Ordinary and beautiful, mundane and miraculous. Such is the story of many  phenomena from the natural world.

bluebirds

Even at the height of summer, winter is never far away in the minds of those who live here. Farmers have just finished up the first of two cuttings of hay in the fields in order to carry livestock through the winter season. Coincidentally, the bluebirds typically fledge two broods of babies over the summer and the first batch takes to the skies around the time of first cuttings.

As the bluebirds are getting ready to fledge, there is a lot of activity around the birdhouse as the parents try to keep up with the babies voracious appetites. Then when they fledge, the activity level drops off to zero. Things were very quiet around the birdhouse the other day so I went out to see if all was well. Sure enough, the babies had flown away. I opened up the house, and cleaned out all of the debris from this first hatching. It gets very dirty in there. When I got done, the mature birds looked happy with the results.

We have had bluebirds in that nest for maybe 10 years. I was shocked when I dredged up this photo to see how new it was then compared with how aged it is now. I love having the birds there in the summer, but I do feel almost partially responsible for how they fare. I worry about them. So with two hatchings a year for 10 years with about 4 new birds per hatch, that's somewhere around 70-80 new bluebirds in the world. It's not unusual in the late winter to see the family of bluebirds come to visit the house in anticipation of the spring breeding season. One winter our daughter-in-law, Ellen, lived here, and she said that she saw them out there all winter long. They are such beautiful birds, and a delight to have around during our summer season.

war

Allyn's day lilies are starting to bloom. The deer love them. They hop the barb wire fence separating our place from their place like it's nothing. Allyn is a most peaceful and loving person, but this means war.

strawberries!

Strawberries from Wood's Market. The first bite of the season from a Vermont strawberry is truly one of the highlights of the year. Strawberries, fireflies, wildflowers, peonies; many wonderful things happening right now here on the other side of the creek.

Everyone should have themselves regularly overwhelmed by Nature.
George Harrison
Zen page-a-day calendar

day in June

A day in June. Deer with a newborn fawn in the back field. The fawn couldn't have been more than a couple of days old. Peonies in the front yard.

Today

by Billy Collins

If ever there was a day so perfect,

so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze

that it made you want to throw

open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage

indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,

a day when the cool brick paths

and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight

that you felt like taking

a hammer to the glass paperweight

on the living room table,

releasing the inhabitants

from their snow-covered cottage

so they could walk out

holding hands and squinting

into this larger dome of blue and white,

well, today is just that kind of day.

wildflowers

The spring ephemeral wildflower season is over. It is just that, ephemeral. The wildflowers in question: bloodroot, trillium, dutchman's breeches, etc. bloom in woodlands before the trees leaf out. It's a short season. The wildflowers blossoming now are more of the grassland variety. They will, for the most part, be around all summer.

golden alexander

orange hawkweed

phlox

buttercups

celandine

canada anenome

lupines

In short, the Sand Counties are poor.
Yet in the 1930's, when the alphabetical uplifts galloped like forty horsemen across the Big Flats, exhorting the sand farmers to resettle elsewhere, these benighted folks did not want to go, even when baited with 3 percent at eh federal land bank. I began to wonder why, and finally to settle the question, I bought myself a sand farm.
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

house wren

Lawn furniture out of the attic. Farmers Market in full swing. Went to check out the new bluebird house I had put up. Damn house wren had filled it with sticks. 

fireflies

Full moon the other night

Another day of "retirement" took me to Montpelier yesterday for meetings, back to Rutland, and then up to the Zen Center in Shelburne for the Thursday evening sitting. Got home about 10:00 and pretty tired. Walking into the house noticed that the fireflies have arrived; blinking cheerily in the back. The season of magic has begun.

I grew up in California which is too dry for fireflies. I remember visiting family in Ohio as a boy, and being awestruck by the fireflies. I used to put them in my suitcase when heading home; hoping to introduce them to California, no such luck. Please don't report me to the Dept. of Agriculture.

It was still twilight when they reached the flat rock. They sat, and the stone still held the warmth of the day's sun. At first, there were only occasional sparkles, but as it got darker Chuck was lost in a daze of delight as a galaxy of fireflies twinkled on and off, flying upward in a blaze of light, dropping earthward like falling stars, moving in continuing effervescent dance.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Madelaine L'Engle

nectar

Woke up early this morning to the light and birdsongs outside. A single deer browsing her way through the back field. Bluebirds busy trying to keep up with the newly hatched babies. Hummingbird sipping nectar from a flower off the patio.

The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.
John Burroughs
Zen page-a-day calendar

curtain

Yesterday was cloudy and rainy, but it only seemed to accentuate how green the mountains are right now. In the fall the mountains turn orange at the very top, and this ribbon of color works its way down the mountain as summer turns to fall. In the spring the process works in reverse with green emerging at the bottom of the mountain, and working its way up throughout the spring. Now the mountains are fully colored all the way to the top. In the fall, as the leaves drop away, the hillside behind our house is revealed in stark detail. Now that the forest greenery has fully returned, the drama of arboreal life is closed off to us behind a silent emerald curtain.

It is June. I am tired of being brave.
Anne Sexton
Zen page-a-day calendar

black locust

Back from the retreat, and noticed that the black locusts have finally started to blossom. This is one of my favorite blooming trees and is 2-3 weeks late this year. We had a very cold spring.