3 posts tagged “solstice”

It's annoying enough to find yourself stirring to a bright sky and a cacophony of birds at 6am, but it's most aggravating when it wakes you in the middle of dreams where you're visiting with loved ones you only ever get to visit in dreams any more.  Though they say we only remember the dreams we are woken from, so I guess without all this early morning bright and busyness I wouldn't remember these visits I've been enjoying for the past several days.  But then, I wouldn't be starting each day with this bittersweet melancholy if I couldn't remember these dreams either.  I've heard it suggested that visitors in the dreaming usually have a preferred time for visiting, and now I'm wondering if I woke up every day at 6am how many similar dreams I'd remember.

I managed to get back to sleep yesterday, and actually got a couple of hours of sound sleep after a night of tossing and turning.  That meant a late start to the day though, which meant yard work later in the morning than I'd planned, ...which meant more intense sunlight beating down on my shoulders.  I was an idiot and didn't put on sunscreen.  I only meant to be out for about fifteen minutes, and that turned into about thirty.  And then I spent some time in the sun hanging laundry on the line yesterday too.  By the end of the day, my shoulders were a pretty good pink.  You'd think, with my fine Irish skin, I would learn to always sunscreen-up before going out, especially this close to the summer solstice.  But even now I'm thinking if I go out early enough, I won't have to put that goop all over my skin.  *sigh*  I will put it on though.  I hate it, but I know I need it.  Mean, mean sun.

So I finally got my old flower bed cleared of waist-high wild growth and filled back up with compost on Sunday.  Earlier in the season I'd planned on laying out a perennial bed and planting according to plan.  It's been so damn humid though, and it's so very unpleasant to be outside in it, once the bed was ready for planting, I just randomly sprinkled all of my flower seeds in there.   All of them.  I put in the packets I bought new this year and anything I had left from previous years, including some large packets of wildflower mixes.  It's my mystery garden now.  Tiny green bits are already peeking up.  I've very curious to see what grows.  I'm going to have to weed it *VERY* carefully as things start growing.  Fortunately, I'm quite familiar with all the weeds I just finished pulling out of the ground there, so I should be able to identify and evict those.

I've also started digging my garden for misfit plants.  I hate it when all of your seeds germinate and you have to cull the herds.  I also hate pulling plants growing where they aren't supposed to, especially when I'm curious as to what's growing.  So this year I'm clearing out the mess that used to be our blackberry brambles, and putting a misfit garden in.  I've already transplanted some stuff there.  This will be another fun experiment, seeing what survives the transplant, and what becomes of it all.  I'm pretty sure I have some pumpkin growing from pumpkin guts I composted last year.  I'm going to have to move some zucchini and cucumber over to the misfit garden this week too, as all of those seeds decided to try growing this year, and there's just not room in the veggie garden for them all.

As for the blackberry brambles, they've migrated into the tiger lilies by the garage, which is the perfect place for them, since the lilies are abundant and I won't have a weedy mess growing under painfully sharp brambles.

The tiger lillies by the kitchen window are back this year after being choked out by morning glory vines for a couple of years.  I got tired of that damn non-flowering vine choking out my lilies last year, and asked Craig to spray the vine with a topical poison.  It worked perfectly.  The vine is gone, and my cheery orange friends are back and blooming this year.

Enough yammering about my yard.  I'm going to go have a seat out there in my favorite spot and enjoy a bit of this morning, as long as I'm up, before it gets too hot and sticky out.  Don't know if I'll do more yard work today or if I'll give my shoulders the day off to fade a bit.  That would be the smart thing to do, but the siren song of progress is so hard to resist.  For the moment though, iced coffee, seed for the birds, my favorite seat and a few more minutes thinking about loved ones (much loved!) I sadly don't get to see anywhere but in dreams any more.

The title says it all.  Those are my feelings on summer. 

It seems also appropriate that I got up at 6:30am this solstice day ...on a FRAKKING SUNDAY!  The heavens should not allow the longest day of the year to ever occur on a weekend.  It's just mean to turn the sky up to full-bright at such an ungodly hour on a day of the week when it's perfectly acceptable to sleep in!

Craig is to blame too.  He left the house early-squirrely to get up to Monroe for a hamfest.  bah!  I hope he's having fun.  He'll suffer my wrath when he gets home!  ...Actually, we'll likely just take a nap together, which will be rather pleasant.

So, I've been up for over an hour already.  I've filled the bird feeder, done the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, made myself some coffee and watched this week's episode of Top Chef Masters.  (LOVE that show!)

I think I'm going to make myself a pancake and some eggs, then go dig in the garden for a bit before it gets too hot.  I also need to clean the bunny room and get some laundry going, then I'm going to build my solar oven prototype, and maybe by then Craig will be home, and it will be nap time.

Don't much like summer weather, but YAY for the days getting darker again!

Today is my winter holiday.  One of these years I will have all of this Christmas hullabaloo out of the way in time to get things lined up for a beautiful solstice celebration that so far only ever happens in my imagination.  *sigh* 

But, since the rest of the fam celebrates Christmas, I must march on with the Christmas preparations.

Right now my house looks like someone turned it upside down and shook it.  I still haven't dug through my cupboards to make sure I have enough dinnerware to serve the family on Saturday.  I still haven't written out the menu to make sure we have everything we need to even have a good dinner.  I still haven't wrapped any gifts.  I still haven't bought a few.  And I'm still knitting one of the gifts I'll need for Saturday.  Nobody warned me there's a Yule Cat on the prowl for people who haven't finished their wool work by now!  YIKES!

But, the husband and I are going out to eat tonight, and doing what could be the last of our shopping.  Then we're slipping over to the B&N to meet with our writers' group just long enough to have a gingerbread latte' and a cupcake and to wish everyone, "Happy Holidays!"  Tonight and tomorrow will be a mad marathon of decorating, cleaning and wrapping, working all that around the hours I have to be at work.  With a lot of luck, Saturday will roll around and all I will have to do is make the ham, baked apples and wassail, and primp for our party.  ...And who am I kidding?  I'll probably be decorating still, probably right on through Christmas even.  heh.

All that madness aside, the solstice occurs at 7:22 EST this evening, and thus begins my favorite season.  In my mind I have a Yule log to burn, fragrant evergreens in my home, a special gift wrapped for my beloved, and rich meal to prepare for the two of us.  Ideally, we'd be up all night playing PS2 (our version of dance and revelry) until we were assured the sun had returned and we dropped into bed with the blinds shut tightly.   ...One of these years I'll get that right.

I hope we get snow soon.

Happy Solstice, all!!!