Some are blooms [say it fast]

The season of dandelion and lilac blooms is pretty much over. Vetch is beginning to flower, along with penstemon and goat’s beard. It’s less than a month until Independence Day celebrations. Summer solstice is two weeks from tomorrow. I’ve just about given up hope of seeing scarlet tanagers or other exotic migrants this year. Summer has settled in. Time to enjoy some of that easy living.

Yellow Goat's Beard (Tragopogon dubius)

Photo by J. Harrington

The other day I came across the disappointing report that DQ has dropped cherry-dipped soft cones from its menu. In response, the Better Half went out and stocked up on cherry-covered dilly bars. We’ll hope the initial report was in error or that it doesn't apply to one of my favorite summer treats. In fact, I think I’ll give myself one as a reward after we post today’s blog.

Although the flowers have enjoyed a few showers in recent days, we haven’t had any real rain to speak of. We’ll continue to water last fall’s and this spring’s plantings and hope for the best. As we feared, Minnesota’s Mother Nature is compensating for last winter’s excess precipitation by providing extra early heat and extended dry spells during later astronomical spring and early meteorological summer season. You did know we’ve entered meteorological summer as of June 1, right?

I think if I accept that we really are now in summer I can let go of the sense of urgency to get spring cleanup finished and relax as I pick away at odds and ends of chores. Summer mode is based on a slower pace and we all should get better at respecting that. It just may turn out that everything that needs to get done does, but with much less fuss and bother.

Strawberrying

May Swenson
1913 – 1989

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbird’s wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He’s left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We’re picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Here and there,
their squishy wounds. . . . Flesh was perfect
yesterday. . . . June was for gorging. . . .
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

“Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,”
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. “Don’t step on any. Don’t
change rows. Don’t eat too many.” Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfuls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this thick begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cows when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the backs of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed—too soft—
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems—
families smothered as at Pompeii—I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

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