Summer Things

It's nice to be back to summer things. Summer is when I best like to read. I like to read outside. This year again a stack of books and magazines has been gathered for just such reading leisure.

Tuesday's 103 degrees, which made us the hot spot of the nation, and beat Death Valley that day by six degrees, wasn't a good time to be out reading. Same could be said of today, some forty degrees cooler and considerably windy.

Yesterday was busy with the errands that can fill a day. I got outside finally last night to weed around the mailbox.

The mild air and low sun were pleasant. You think of all the time in the winter you're inside because of the cold or the darkness by suppertime.

It's joy to be outside, even on hands and knees, as you reach to pull quack grass that threatens to overrun your hostas.

The white lilacs are fragrant as they grow haphazardly in the shade. Insufficient sunlight may be the reason for their small blooms. Or perhaps they're a species content to stay more petite. They put their effort into lavishing us with intense scent.

I picked a bouquet of these white lilacs for our table. I brought in some irises too. Irises were picked from the garden for my brother's wedding many years ago.

I brought the irises into the house tonight forgetting (at the time) that it was their anniversary. Irises to me will always be their flower. What we choose as background and setting for the I Dos we say indeed do become lasting symbols of our vows to committed love.

It was a late season for lilacs. Even with the slow start they're almost done blooming. Or enough so to say the lilac show is over. Some hang on as if wanting to see what comes after. It's the peonies with their claim to early June.

Their flamboyant colors collect fans as devoted as those to roses. Visit the peony walk at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum when the peonies are in bloom and you understand the draw.

My new favorite flower at the Arboretum are the coral bells. They're very pretty. I like their tall spiky cheerful note of color. Where they edge the pathways they were what I noticed first.

Azaleas in corals and pinks are bright patches in the Arboretum woods. The late-summer flowers, replacing the tulips in their yellow, red and orange color arrangements, were being put in while we were there.

It was beautiful in the Arboretum as always. It's been interesting to follow the progression of growth and change from early this spring.

All things have their time and season. This must have been a thought worked out in some garden. The truth in this gives each of us chances to pause in the moment and enjoy as we take it all in.

Every trip to the Arboretum I learn some new plant, or what I've come to know is reinforced. It's a good feeling to know you can learn in small ways.

Minnehaha Falls in south Minneapolis was as tumultuous this weekend as we've ever seen it. The fellow next to us, learning over the balustrade as we were, to better see the spectacle of the falls, mentioned that his parents met in Minnehaha Park in the 1920s.

He pointed to the grassy upstream bank of Minnehaha Creek. That's where they met he said.

His dad was a soldier. His mom had been told by her parents not to speak to soldiers. Maybe she didn't speak to him. Maybe she only smiled. But the rest of the story speaks for itself. I enjoyed hearing about this.

Every couple has special stories that go on.

Ro Giencke - June 9, 2011