Lovely essay on the meaning of summer. The Seckel pear cemetery photo caught my eye. Do you have a pear tree? I miss the one we had near our cabin on the pond in upstate NY. Small, but delicious.
Thank you, Jill! I have two Seckel pear trees, both as old as the house, so they are 123 years old this year. Last year they produced 160 pounds of Seckel pears, most of which went to my friend Jay Kenney of Clear Fork Cider to go into his "Local Pear" hard cider, which I can attest is delicious!. I am not surprised that you miss your Seckel pear tree. They are indeed delicious. Sadly, the withered fruits on my patio in the photo are all those trees will produce this year.
Jay makes really excellent cider! The "Ditch-cot" (from apricots sprouting on nearby irrigation ditch banks) and the "Local Pear" are my favorites. I was happy to contribute my abundant Seckel harvest to support his work.
My trees are happy and healthy, despite their age. They and my two ancient apple trees hadn't been pruned in probably 25 years when I bought the place last year, so I spent parts of many weekends up on the top of my tallest stepladder or in the trees, taking out trailer loads of water sprouts, and bringing the crowns back down to harvest level. The trees were on target for another bumper crop this year until the late April freeze. Which they would have weathered fine if they hadn't been fooled by the March heat to flower a month early. Sigh.
You probably didn't have apricots in upstate NY, or now in Appleton (the town of apple orchards)! It's too cold there for them. But it makes great hard cider, I can attest.
Yay for summer! 🎉 One of my most favorite seasons. I appreciate how you weave perspective into this, Susan. I'm grateful we can form our own, and I am beyond grateful for you. 🙏
Thank you, Evonne! I am smiling thinking of you up in the lookouts you are staffing, loving the expansive views and reporting smokes. May your lookout summer replenish you in ways that go far beyond your checking account! (Not that the pay is not important too.)
Thank you, friend! ❤️ The season has given me plenty to write about and think about so far. The other day, a butterfly flew circles around me, two butterflies danced in tandem, and two ravens and swallows hung out by the lookout. I saw a yearling bear a couple of weeks ago, too. 😍 I love lookout life and you!! So much! ❤️
Having grown up in Yuma, Arizona, summer meant long hot days and sweltering nights. But then late winter and early spring meant ferocious dust storms, where the tiny particles got into everything. Rain was almost non-existent! My parents had a swamp cooler and fans and that was it! Thus, summer was not my favorite season. In Yuma you really needed air conditioning just to survive! Plowing was often done at night with lights.
Summer in Washington state is more reasonable! Summer days can be quite pleasant.
Summers in Yuma sound like quite an adventure, and I'm glad you at least had a swamp cooler and fans when you were growing up to ameliorate the heat somewhat. Western Washington summers must feel like paradise by comparison, even though it can get hot there from time to time....
One September the temperature hit 123 F. My dad raised rabbits and that day he lost half of them, despite our going out with a hose and watering them down. Two of the rabbits were mine- Himalayan pair that a friend had given to me. Colored like a Siamese cat. I never tried to raise rabbits again! I was trying to fit in to the friends that I finally had who were in 4-H and Boyscouts! I never did. It is ironic that years later because of our outreach from our department at NMSU I was involved in both 4-H and FFA, and that lasted for about thirty years!
The atmosphere that day seemed solid, like you could cut it with a knife. I've never seen another day like it.
You can imagine what conditions were like at Yuma Territorial Prison back in the eighteen hundreds!
That is sad, but 123 degrees F is very, very hot. I can't imagine any furry mammals surviving in that heat unless they were smart enough to burrow into the ground.
Didn't you know there is no such thing is climate change? After all the droughts, fires, and floods, you'd think everyone would get the message. Ha!
I love western Colorado. Usually, it's not as dry as eastern. Durango, where I lived for a few years, has wetter mountains, too. The San Juans were my favorite place to hit and backpack. Your photos are lovely, as is your take on summer.
It's religion, Karen, you know that! Either you believe or you don't--logic has nothing to do with it.
Western Colorado used to get more moisture, but it's not been that way for the past decade and some. Even the San Juans are in drought this year, after a truly dismal winter. Sigh.
Isn't that great, Stephanie? Built right on top of the orchard ladder, which we had to very carefully move the day before yesterday, all without disturbing the nestlings or the parents.
We have been unseasonably cool for months. It’s sometimes felt a bit like the Pacific Northwest here in the Mid-Atlantic.
You can send me three postcards, if you’d like. I need to figure out how all of this works, for future reference, and there are three indie bookstores that come to mind that would be good places for you to make a connection.
Enjoy the unseasonable cool while you have it! It'll probably go straight to hot and muggy when summer does finally come.
Thank you, and I will. I'll send you three sell sheets too, which you've seen digitally, but we revised them with the new book graphic since then. I hope that helping me out is useful research for you and makes some good connections. Hugs and blessings to you and J!
Thanks for usual splendid writing, it is always inspirational. Great to hear your book is close to being printed and shipped. 😊. It seems you have generated a lot of local weather reports, always a fun topic for discussion. Happy Trails
Thank you, Jerry! Weather is always a fun topic for discussion because it is ever-changing and it is a relatively neutral topic. :) Blessings to you and your weather!
Summer is the season of evening light, intermittent blazing sunshine, and prickles under my skin when it gets too hot. It used to be the summer of short sets and swimming and tennis lessons. For me it was never the summer of indulging in fruit, but it could be this year because you're never too old to experience something new.
Thank you so much. It's graduation season in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District where I used to teach from 1974. to 1992 or 93, so it's a special part of early summer for me. Thanks!
Thank you for all these thoughts. 💚💚💚 We had the same weather events here in our part of Morrow County, OH. Our Growing Degree Days in March were astonishingly high so everything leafed out and bloomed and emerged from hibernation (bumble bees) being one. It was catastrophic when 3 sub 28 degree nights occurred. Drought and then 7 inches of rain in 1 week crippled everyone left. SO HARD. Climate change sucks so bad!!!!!! We are watching with hope the bees that are coming round here and there. The fruits and seeds are lost, but we hope in the diverse plantings, there will be enough sustenance for some life. We greatly look forward to tackling this climatic problem. Today we welcome in the start of 'summer' for us....hiking, talking to birds with their babies, admiring dragonflies, swimming, tart cherries and persimmon flowers from a farm where they survived. Big hugs, Susan. We hold a world of hurt and a world of love in our hearts. -Jennifer 💚💚💚🌎🌎🌎
The community of life on Earth is astonishingly resilient, but that does not mean that all beings in all places will survive the incredible stress we have set loose with climate change. I hope that your part of Ohio will prove resilient, and that the bumblebees and others native bees will survive and find enough nourishment to survive, along with the plants and birds, frogs and salamanders, and all of the other lives who weave your landscape. Your last sentence says it all: "We hold a world of hurt and a world of love in our hearts." Being able to hold those opposing forces without letting them destroy us is our challenge these days. May summer bring you all of the nourishment you need--body, mind, heart, and spirit--to continue living with compassion and action. Hugs back to you!
Thanks for writing the many definitions and also about perspective. I am having a Finnish Midsummer party and one of the attendees scolded me the day because according to "science" was not midsummer. Here's to the old gods.
Good grief! Since when have we all become so narrow that we can't be open to other views? (Rhetorical question, sorry.) How silly. Here's to the indigenous stories, the old gods, and seeing life broadly! xo to you.
Love seeing how a discussion of the season sparks a national conversation highlighting the ecological diversity of the nation. It’s truly an amazing country.
It's an amazing country indeed, and one thing that unites us is weather. We all experience it, we all live with it, and I think most of us are fascinated by how vastly different it can be across the astonishing diversity of our landscapes. I cannot imagine living in any other country on Earth, no matter what a mess the nation is in now, simply because of that wondrous ecological diversity. :)
Loved reading all this history and mythology around summer. The seasons are one of the great markers in the cycle of a year and metaphorically in the cycle of one's age. Summers are a time of full bloom, and there was a time in my much younger life when I felt that way too. While I sit at the edges of winter, metaphorically, I am at heart, a summer girl. Birds, and blossoms delight me throughout the hot months. Here in Texas, I am a fan of the summer lizards, most of whom are newly hatched and scurrying about the sidewalks and shrubbery. They are beautiful to me, in a prehistoric sort of way.
Just after the equinox, I'll be moving -- seems like an auspicious time to do so. And I look forward to the hot moon, and the new blooms I will discover in new home.
Sus, every time I read a post of yours and I see that promo for the new book, I find myself eager to dive into its pages. This is one of those delightful "hurry up and wait" moments. Can't wait to read and take in the pictures. I love and appreciate your deep earth wisdom. Biggest of hugs.
Stephanie, Isn't it fascinating that we also use the seasons metaphorically for the stages of our lives? Good thing I like fall and winter, because I'm definitely in late fall or early winter, depending on how long I can manage to live. :)
You'll be moving just after the Solstice, I think, which is a very auspicious time. And you will get to discover summer in your new home landscape. Such a gift!
Thank you for your enthusiasm for Earthbound. I fall in love with the book all over again each time I see a new form of it. Today I got to look over the ePub version, which just came from the publisher--it's not like holding the actual book in my hands--but it is still just beautiful. xo
Love how the cycles of life are informed by the cycles of nature! Looking forward to being in a new summer in a new place. Gifts abound!
You have good reason to fall in love with Earthbound as it makes its way into the world. I'm thinking it's going to make great Christmas gifts. Big hugs my friend.
Thank you for a lovely and informative essay about everyone's favorite season. (Not mine, but I think I'm in the minority. 😂) And ohhh, that woodpecker -- what a handsome bird! I love those glimpses of your yard and garden. You are really settling in, looks like! Summer blessings to you, friend.
Summer's not my favorite season either, Jeanne, perhaps because it's always so busy with garden chores and perhaps because it gets so hot here before the summer monsoons start and bring cooling rain (which we desperately need this year). So I don't know if we're in the minority or not, but I'm with you. And isn't that Lewis' Woodpecker gorgeous! They're fascinating birds too, because they perch like woodpeckers, but sally out into the air on the wing to catch large insects like flycatchers--very colorful flycatchers! Summer blessings to you, too, Jeanne, even if it's not our favorite season!
Lovely essay on the meaning of summer. The Seckel pear cemetery photo caught my eye. Do you have a pear tree? I miss the one we had near our cabin on the pond in upstate NY. Small, but delicious.
Thank you, Jill! I have two Seckel pear trees, both as old as the house, so they are 123 years old this year. Last year they produced 160 pounds of Seckel pears, most of which went to my friend Jay Kenney of Clear Fork Cider to go into his "Local Pear" hard cider, which I can attest is delicious!. I am not surprised that you miss your Seckel pear tree. They are indeed delicious. Sadly, the withered fruits on my patio in the photo are all those trees will produce this year.
I bet that cider goes down good!
Our single Seckel gave fruit every other year.
160 pounds off two trees is a LOT!
Jay makes really excellent cider! The "Ditch-cot" (from apricots sprouting on nearby irrigation ditch banks) and the "Local Pear" are my favorites. I was happy to contribute my abundant Seckel harvest to support his work.
My trees are happy and healthy, despite their age. They and my two ancient apple trees hadn't been pruned in probably 25 years when I bought the place last year, so I spent parts of many weekends up on the top of my tallest stepladder or in the trees, taking out trailer loads of water sprouts, and bringing the crowns back down to harvest level. The trees were on target for another bumper crop this year until the late April freeze. Which they would have weathered fine if they hadn't been fooled by the March heat to flower a month early. Sigh.
"Ditch-cot" juice is a new cider to me.
You probably didn't have apricots in upstate NY, or now in Appleton (the town of apple orchards)! It's too cold there for them. But it makes great hard cider, I can attest.
Yay for summer! 🎉 One of my most favorite seasons. I appreciate how you weave perspective into this, Susan. I'm grateful we can form our own, and I am beyond grateful for you. 🙏
Thank you, Evonne! I am smiling thinking of you up in the lookouts you are staffing, loving the expansive views and reporting smokes. May your lookout summer replenish you in ways that go far beyond your checking account! (Not that the pay is not important too.)
Thank you, friend! ❤️ The season has given me plenty to write about and think about so far. The other day, a butterfly flew circles around me, two butterflies danced in tandem, and two ravens and swallows hung out by the lookout. I saw a yearling bear a couple of weeks ago, too. 😍 I love lookout life and you!! So much! ❤️
All magical and mystical encounters. I am so glad you have this chance to do lookout work again. xo!
Thank you, friend! ❤️ Me too!
Lovely essay!
Having grown up in Yuma, Arizona, summer meant long hot days and sweltering nights. But then late winter and early spring meant ferocious dust storms, where the tiny particles got into everything. Rain was almost non-existent! My parents had a swamp cooler and fans and that was it! Thus, summer was not my favorite season. In Yuma you really needed air conditioning just to survive! Plowing was often done at night with lights.
Summer in Washington state is more reasonable! Summer days can be quite pleasant.
Summers in Yuma sound like quite an adventure, and I'm glad you at least had a swamp cooler and fans when you were growing up to ameliorate the heat somewhat. Western Washington summers must feel like paradise by comparison, even though it can get hot there from time to time....
One September the temperature hit 123 F. My dad raised rabbits and that day he lost half of them, despite our going out with a hose and watering them down. Two of the rabbits were mine- Himalayan pair that a friend had given to me. Colored like a Siamese cat. I never tried to raise rabbits again! I was trying to fit in to the friends that I finally had who were in 4-H and Boyscouts! I never did. It is ironic that years later because of our outreach from our department at NMSU I was involved in both 4-H and FFA, and that lasted for about thirty years!
The atmosphere that day seemed solid, like you could cut it with a knife. I've never seen another day like it.
You can imagine what conditions were like at Yuma Territorial Prison back in the eighteen hundreds!
That is sad, but 123 degrees F is very, very hot. I can't imagine any furry mammals surviving in that heat unless they were smart enough to burrow into the ground.
Didn't you know there is no such thing is climate change? After all the droughts, fires, and floods, you'd think everyone would get the message. Ha!
I love western Colorado. Usually, it's not as dry as eastern. Durango, where I lived for a few years, has wetter mountains, too. The San Juans were my favorite place to hit and backpack. Your photos are lovely, as is your take on summer.
It's religion, Karen, you know that! Either you believe or you don't--logic has nothing to do with it.
Western Colorado used to get more moisture, but it's not been that way for the past decade and some. Even the San Juans are in drought this year, after a truly dismal winter. Sigh.
Thanks for the compliment, and for your support!
The robin's nest!
Isn't that great, Stephanie? Built right on top of the orchard ladder, which we had to very carefully move the day before yesterday, all without disturbing the nestlings or the parents.
INCREDIBLE
I held my breath the whole time, which made it harder to carry the ladder steadily and keep it upright. But the robins took it all in stride. :)
I'm smiling so big right now!!!!
Me too, remembering. Hugs to you....
We have been unseasonably cool for months. It’s sometimes felt a bit like the Pacific Northwest here in the Mid-Atlantic.
You can send me three postcards, if you’d like. I need to figure out how all of this works, for future reference, and there are three indie bookstores that come to mind that would be good places for you to make a connection.
Enjoy the unseasonable cool while you have it! It'll probably go straight to hot and muggy when summer does finally come.
Thank you, and I will. I'll send you three sell sheets too, which you've seen digitally, but we revised them with the new book graphic since then. I hope that helping me out is useful research for you and makes some good connections. Hugs and blessings to you and J!
Thanks for usual splendid writing, it is always inspirational. Great to hear your book is close to being printed and shipped. 😊. It seems you have generated a lot of local weather reports, always a fun topic for discussion. Happy Trails
Thank you, Jerry! Weather is always a fun topic for discussion because it is ever-changing and it is a relatively neutral topic. :) Blessings to you and your weather!
Summer is the season of evening light, intermittent blazing sunshine, and prickles under my skin when it gets too hot. It used to be the summer of short sets and swimming and tennis lessons. For me it was never the summer of indulging in fruit, but it could be this year because you're never too old to experience something new.
www.writeradvice.com
What a lovely micro-meditation on summer, Lynn! Thank you. Blessings to you as summer comes in....
Thank you so much. It's graduation season in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District where I used to teach from 1974. to 1992 or 93, so it's a special part of early summer for me. Thanks!
Your students were fortunate to have you as a teacher, Lynn, and how wonderful that you still feel the glow of graduation season from those days. :)
Thank you for all these thoughts. 💚💚💚 We had the same weather events here in our part of Morrow County, OH. Our Growing Degree Days in March were astonishingly high so everything leafed out and bloomed and emerged from hibernation (bumble bees) being one. It was catastrophic when 3 sub 28 degree nights occurred. Drought and then 7 inches of rain in 1 week crippled everyone left. SO HARD. Climate change sucks so bad!!!!!! We are watching with hope the bees that are coming round here and there. The fruits and seeds are lost, but we hope in the diverse plantings, there will be enough sustenance for some life. We greatly look forward to tackling this climatic problem. Today we welcome in the start of 'summer' for us....hiking, talking to birds with their babies, admiring dragonflies, swimming, tart cherries and persimmon flowers from a farm where they survived. Big hugs, Susan. We hold a world of hurt and a world of love in our hearts. -Jennifer 💚💚💚🌎🌎🌎
The community of life on Earth is astonishingly resilient, but that does not mean that all beings in all places will survive the incredible stress we have set loose with climate change. I hope that your part of Ohio will prove resilient, and that the bumblebees and others native bees will survive and find enough nourishment to survive, along with the plants and birds, frogs and salamanders, and all of the other lives who weave your landscape. Your last sentence says it all: "We hold a world of hurt and a world of love in our hearts." Being able to hold those opposing forces without letting them destroy us is our challenge these days. May summer bring you all of the nourishment you need--body, mind, heart, and spirit--to continue living with compassion and action. Hugs back to you!
Summer begins when the cicadas sing! Thanks for these wonderful thoughts about my favorite time of year...come on monsoons!
Oh, those whining cicadas! Thanks for your words and the birds you share. Surely the monsoons will hear all of our cries....
Thanks for writing the many definitions and also about perspective. I am having a Finnish Midsummer party and one of the attendees scolded me the day because according to "science" was not midsummer. Here's to the old gods.
Good grief! Since when have we all become so narrow that we can't be open to other views? (Rhetorical question, sorry.) How silly. Here's to the indigenous stories, the old gods, and seeing life broadly! xo to you.
Love seeing how a discussion of the season sparks a national conversation highlighting the ecological diversity of the nation. It’s truly an amazing country.
It's an amazing country indeed, and one thing that unites us is weather. We all experience it, we all live with it, and I think most of us are fascinated by how vastly different it can be across the astonishing diversity of our landscapes. I cannot imagine living in any other country on Earth, no matter what a mess the nation is in now, simply because of that wondrous ecological diversity. :)
Loved reading all this history and mythology around summer. The seasons are one of the great markers in the cycle of a year and metaphorically in the cycle of one's age. Summers are a time of full bloom, and there was a time in my much younger life when I felt that way too. While I sit at the edges of winter, metaphorically, I am at heart, a summer girl. Birds, and blossoms delight me throughout the hot months. Here in Texas, I am a fan of the summer lizards, most of whom are newly hatched and scurrying about the sidewalks and shrubbery. They are beautiful to me, in a prehistoric sort of way.
Just after the equinox, I'll be moving -- seems like an auspicious time to do so. And I look forward to the hot moon, and the new blooms I will discover in new home.
Sus, every time I read a post of yours and I see that promo for the new book, I find myself eager to dive into its pages. This is one of those delightful "hurry up and wait" moments. Can't wait to read and take in the pictures. I love and appreciate your deep earth wisdom. Biggest of hugs.
Stephanie, Isn't it fascinating that we also use the seasons metaphorically for the stages of our lives? Good thing I like fall and winter, because I'm definitely in late fall or early winter, depending on how long I can manage to live. :)
You'll be moving just after the Solstice, I think, which is a very auspicious time. And you will get to discover summer in your new home landscape. Such a gift!
Thank you for your enthusiasm for Earthbound. I fall in love with the book all over again each time I see a new form of it. Today I got to look over the ePub version, which just came from the publisher--it's not like holding the actual book in my hands--but it is still just beautiful. xo
Love how the cycles of life are informed by the cycles of nature! Looking forward to being in a new summer in a new place. Gifts abound!
You have good reason to fall in love with Earthbound as it makes its way into the world. I'm thinking it's going to make great Christmas gifts. Big hugs my friend.
Thank you for a lovely and informative essay about everyone's favorite season. (Not mine, but I think I'm in the minority. 😂) And ohhh, that woodpecker -- what a handsome bird! I love those glimpses of your yard and garden. You are really settling in, looks like! Summer blessings to you, friend.
Summer's not my favorite season either, Jeanne, perhaps because it's always so busy with garden chores and perhaps because it gets so hot here before the summer monsoons start and bring cooling rain (which we desperately need this year). So I don't know if we're in the minority or not, but I'm with you. And isn't that Lewis' Woodpecker gorgeous! They're fascinating birds too, because they perch like woodpeckers, but sally out into the air on the wing to catch large insects like flycatchers--very colorful flycatchers! Summer blessings to you, too, Jeanne, even if it's not our favorite season!