Summer Solstice

It's the longest day of the year! I love the irony that this, the inaugural day of summer and the hottest months of the year, also ushers in the start of shorter days. Granted, it will be several months before the lazy late nights shift significantly earlier, but after today it's all downhill until the winter solstice.

The full moon of June, which was on the 9th, is the Strawberry Moon, because this is the month strawberries start to ripen. I got my first real harvest (other than one or two here and there) a few days ago. Aren't they lovely?

Yeah, so they vary in size from a pea to a large grape, but that's okay. They are nothing like the strawberries available in the store, but they're sweet and delicious and the beauty of a small patch is that there's nothing to be done with them besides eat them straightaway.

Most of the spring flowers have faded off; my pretty yellow bushes have turned to green, the purple spikes of the salvia are temporarily exhausted (they'll be back in a few weeks), and the sage and thyme are finished blooming too. Next up will be the daisy I bought last year at the end of the season - which promptly died, but is coming back nicely - and with any luck, the lilies I planted three years ago. I keep getting plenty of healthy green stalks and no flowers whatsoever. In a fit of annoyance last week I told them that if they don't flower this year I'm yanking them all out to replace them with something that will give some summer color! I don't even remember what color these were supposed to be!

I may or may not follow through on that. I feel guilty pulling up plants; I pulled out the anemic and perpetually diseased rose bushes early in spring, and felt bad the whole time I was hacking at the four-inch-thick roots with my spade (I really need to invest in more garden tools, this was not really the tool for this task). My mother told me my grandmother used to talk to her plants - and she had a zillion of them, all over the house, racks on the patio, a huge Florida yard full of mango trees and other exotic flora I don't really remember - and that she swore by this as a part of their care.

I do this too. I like to chat with them as I'm watering them every week, checking out their leaves and the state they're in. Plant care seems to have skipped a generation from my grandmother to me - my mother rarely had real plants in the house, she preferred the plastic ones. To this day I'm not sure if she had a black thumb or if she just didn't like the idea of the bugs they can bring into the house. She was a bit of a clean freak.

Just a hunch. 

No plastic plants for me! To be fair, I have seen plenty of plants to an early death. I transplanted my parsley that lived a nice quiet life in my kitchen window out into the garden a few weeks ago, and it was thriving, until a couple of days ago when all the leaves mysteriously disappeared. I think I know the culprit on that one though. -->

The lavender is blooming earlier than I remember as being "usual," so I've pulled a few bunches to dry for later use. They are messy bushes but I love them.

Summer has begun and it's time for the heat. I am not, personally, a fan. If I had my druthers (what a great phrase, we really need to bring back some of those old phrases) it would never get above 75. Alas, Gaia does as she sees fit and cares not for my personal comfort zone.

Happy Solstice and may you all have a beautiful summer.

Life is For Living

The secret of life, I think, is to never stop living it. Never stop having adventures. Never stop doing things that scare you. Never get jaded to the beauty of the world, and stay open to experiencing new places and people and activities.

What does it all mean?

It helps to have adventurous friends, of course! This weekend I went with a friend to visit the Dinosaur National Monument, something I've wanted to see for years. We headed out on Friday and drove half a day across Colorado to the northwest corner, ending up in Utah where most of the actual dinosaur stuff is.

First stop, outside the monument, was the McConkie Ranch to view the petroglyphs left by the ancient Fremont culture. The nature of the iconography and its purpose is still up for debate, as well as their age - estimated from the year 1 to 1200, a pretty wide span.  The images are fascinating and unusual, and their placement on sheer cliff walls makes viewing them a bit of a challenge.

View from the ridge at McConkie Ranch. 

Getting older is such a mixed bag. It's frustrating in some ways - the achy knees, the mysterious bruises that appear from gods know where, the realization that I've forgotten something I was absolutely positive I'd done. As Isabella Rosellini says in Death Becomes Her: "This is life's ultimate cruelty. It offers us a taste of youth and vitality, and then it makes us witness our own decay."

On the other hand, getting older is freeing in ways I never imagined as a young woman. Looking back, I never realized how much I was afraid. Afraid to be myself, to have expectations of the relationships in my life, to choose a path to happiness that was completely my own. I no longer have any doubts about who I am and what I've chosen - single, childless, mostly solitary. I have made a lot of mistakes, and I have a few regrets, but I wouldn't trade any of it. Every decision I've made, for good and for ill, has led me to the life I have now.

Lunch on the Green River. Best shared with a friend who never stops smiling.

It's pretty great.

Touch the bones! What a cool place. 

The quarry is amazing. A solid wall of bones they left in the rock, some available to touch - millions-year-old bones of long-extinct animals. The wall is jam-packed with Camarasaurus, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and other unnamed species. It's spectacular. If you go there, do not miss the quarry.

This is a particularly special spot and may have been my favorite place in the monument. It was the home of Josie Bassett Morris, a woman who lived alone in a log cabin for 50 years. No electricity, no running water, miles and miles from the nearest neighbor - but if you walk these grounds there is no questioning her decision. Not far from her cabin, situated in a spectacular green meadow ringed with tall trees and still bordered by the fences she built herself, is this box canyon where she'd drive her livestock. It's quiet and peaceful and has an aura that is indescribable.

I see myself in this woman, though she was undoubtedly tougher and more resilient and resourceful than I will ever be. But the notion of living apart from the world, in a beautiful place with only my animals, has a certain appeal.


Maybe someday.

Josie's cabin