Late June #phenology

Common milkweed is beginning to bloom. Black-eyed Susans have started to flower. Butterfly weed has erupted across one local hillside field. June is about to bust into July, so we could claim June is busting out all over, but we won’t.

meadow with black-eyed Susans

Photo by J. Harrington

It looks as though, at least temporarily, the smoke / PM 2.5 alerts have subsided. We may actually get to spend time outside and enjoy it if the mosquitos and deer flies aren’t too bad. Living in Minnesota and getting the equivalent of cabin fever [shack nasties] during the Summer is the pits.

We’ve lost about 3 minutes of daylight since the solstice. Have you noticed the difference? We’ll keep losing until we get to Winter Solstice, when the days will then begin to grow longer. Meanwhile, I’ve not really been able to get into a routine or a rhythm all year. Before that, COVID was responsible for many disruptions. Now, is it simply a post-pandemic adjustment period, plus the increasing effects of climate breakdown, or is something else at work? I don’t want to turn into a mindless automaton, but constantly adjusting to whatever’s next has become wearing. Plus, thanks mostly to the weather and climate-related disruptions, we’ve not yet wet a line this summer.

Back in the old days, if we threw out something that had gotten broken, or worn out, or used up, my mother and/or grandmother used to say “May all bad luck go with it.” June ends tomorrow. May all bad luck go with it.

June Sunset 

Sarojini Naidu
1879 – 1949

Here shall my heart find its haven of calm, 
By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams 
That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm. 
Here shall my soul find its true repose 
Under a sunset sky of dreams 
Diaphanous, amber and rose. 
The air is aglow with the glint and whirl 
Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight, 
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl. 
Afloat in the evening light. 

A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes, 
A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume, 
And thro’ the wet earth the gentian pushes 
Her spikes of silvery bloom. 
Where’er the foot of the bright shower passes 
Fragrant and fresh delights unfold; 
The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses, 
Wild bees on the cactus-gold. 

An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks, 
And a wistful music pursues the breeze 
From a shepherd’s pipe as he gathers his flocks 
Under the pipal-trees. 
And a young Banjara driving her cattle 
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by 
In an ancient ballad of love and battle 
Set to the beat of a mystic tune, 
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky 
To herald a rising moon. 

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