Father's Day bloomsday #phenology

So, instead of raining on a multitude of Father's Day parades, Mother Nature decided to invalidate a stormy weather forecast and delivered sunshine instead of cloudy, warm instead of cool, and dry instead of wet, making those of us who enjoyed brunch on a deck/patio happy instead of sad. We sincerely hope all dads and those who made them such have as enjoyable and pleasant a Father's Day as we've had so far. The best part has been the company we've kept. It's not every day these days we get to see our son, Daughter Person, Son-In-Law and Better Half all in the same day. Nor is it every year that Father's Day falls on Bloomsday.

June wildflowers, lupine, sheep sorrel, ???

Photo by J. Harrington

As we were coming home, we drove past the location shown in the picture above. What we think are lupine (blue) have started to bloom sometime in the past few days, but not to the extent shown in the photo from a few years ago. The sheep sorrel (red) isn't as prominent yet this year either. We'll get back to this spot some day this week to confirm, up close, our preliminary identifications and see if we can figure out if the lupine is native or nonnative.

We just noticed, before we started this posting, that our refill for hummingbird sugar-water had turned cloudy. Time for us to sign off and make some fresh nectar. Otherwise, this has been a rare and beautiful Father's Day in June.

Gospel

Philip Levine- 1928-2015

The new grass rising in the hills,
the cows loitering in the morning chill,
a dozen or more old browns hidden
in the shadows of the cottonwoods
beside the streambed. I go higher
to where the road gives up and there's
only a faint path strewn with lupine
between the mountain oaks. I don't
ask myself what I'm looking for.
I didn't come for answers
to a place like this, I came to walk
on the earth, still cold, still silent.
Still ungiving, I've said to myself,
although it greets me with last year's
dead thistles and this year's 
hard spines, early blooming
wild onions, the curling remains
of spider's cloth. What did I bring 
to the dance? In my back pocket
a crushed letter from a woman
I've never met bearing bad news
I can do nothing about. So I wander
these woods half sightless while
a west wind picks up in the trees
clustered above. The pines make
a music like no other, rising and 
falling like a distant surf at night
that calms the darkness before 
first light. "Soughing" we call it, from
Old English, no less. How weightless
words are when nothing will do.

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