May the bluebird of happiness fly up your father's nose

Three days of temperatures at or near 90℉ several days prior to reaching Summer solstice makes me glad that the meteorologists started Summer on June 1st. I don't think I'd want to live where it climbs up to the 90's in Springtime.

We have an interesting weekend coming up. Summer solstice occurs on Saturday and Father's Day is on Sunday. We'll visit our son midday and our daughter at dinner time, maintaining appropriate social distancing and masking protocols. As our children have turned into adults, I find that, in addition to loving them as a parent, I like them as people. That's one of the nicest Father's Day presents I've ever received. We've been blessed that neither of our children has ever given us the amount  of grief and aggravation I caused my parents. Fortunately, I've gotten both a lot older and a little wiser since I was a teenager, sort of like Dylan's persona in My Back Pages. One of the interesting surprises of aging is that, instead of outgrowing them, I've come to appreciate most of Dylan's lyrics more and more each year. I suspect that says a lot more about his songwriting than it does about me.

bluebird on young pine

Photo by J. Harrington

We've not yet got around to replacing the bluebird house a bear took down last year. Despite a missing house, I believe I've seen a bluebird a couple of times this past week or so. Even in our current hot spell, I can make sure we set the replacement far enough from the lilac bush to allow the mower deck to easily pass between the lilac and the 4" X 4" replacement pole on which the box will be mounted. It's looking like this may be another year when we won't get to play with a Three Sisters' garden (still no sign of a repaired tiller), but there's no end of other projects that can use some attention and elbow grease. I'm even slowly learning to live with the idea that I'll never actually be "done" so I need to sit back and relax regardless.

May those of you who are able enjoy your fathers and your children, not just this coming weekend but every day. Each of us is here for such a short visit we can't afford to miss any opportunities to enjoy each other.

Landscape, Dense with Trees

By Ellen Bryant Voigt

When you move away, you see how much depends

on the pace of the days—how much

depended on the haze we waded through

each summer, visible heat, wavy and discursive

as the lazy track of the snake in the dusty road;

and on the habit in town of porches thatched in vines,

and in the country long dense promenades, the way

we sacrificed the yards to shade.

It was partly the heat that made my father

plant so many trees—two maples marking the site

for the house, two elms on either side when it was done;

mimosa by the fence, and as it failed, fast-growing chestnuts,

loblolly pines; and dogwood, redbud, ornamental crab.

On the farm, everything else he grew

something could eat, but this

would be a permanent mark of his industry,

a glade established in the open field. Or so it seemed.

Looking back at the empty house from across the hill,

I see how well the house is camouflaged, see how

that porous fence of saplings, their later

scrim of foliage, thickened around it,

and still he chinked and mortared, planting more.

Last summer, although he’d lost all tolerance for heat,

he backed the truck in at the family grave

and stood in the truckbed all afternoon, pruning

the landmark oak, repairing recent damage by a wind;

then he came home and hung a swing

in one of the horse-chestnuts for my visit.

The heat was a hand at his throat,

a fist to his weak heart. But it made a triumph

of the cooler air inside, in the bedroom,

in the maple bedstead where he slept,

in the brick house nearly swamped by leaves.

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