June?! NO!!!

Flamin’ march of time. It’s inexorable, isn’t it? Every year at this time, I lament that I’m missing the lengthening of the days, that I should be outside every evening, soaking up the late day sun and enjoying the crazy length of a summer day. And every solstice I regret that throughout the summer, the days will be shrinking, all those hours of light are already being lost. But the reality is that May is usually a mixed bag of wet, and this year it’s a bag of wet and cold (and orchestra and band recitals, piano practice, late dance classes, and all those other bits of life). But in the end I never feel like I’m getting enough out of the longer days.

Whether I appreciate the longer days or not, this will have been The Year of the Garden. A massive deforestation effort among the front dogwood bushes and the shockingly evil hydrangea along the back fence resulted in vast open spaces that we have gardened like we were doing it on purpose. The raspberries have their space pretty much to themselves (except of course for the maples that won’t give up), there’s a nice little space for a blueberry bush and strawberry plants, the bee balm has been reduced to a reasonable crop (sorry, hummingbirds), and the new magnolia is doing beautifully. If you walked by and looked at it, you’d almost think we had some idea how to garden. Almost.

Not enough biking though, a combination of rain, cold, too many other things to do and some undefinable stomach thing that has been kicking up. Last week I found myself with an hour with nothing to do and no bike, and I ventured to just take a walk. No running, biking, blading, or skiing — I just walked. I hadn’t done that in the longest time. As things go now I just don’t walk very much — ride for miles, but little walking. It was wet and I had on the wrong shoes, so I paid for my boldness with blisters. So I learned my lesson and from now on will only move forward if I’m pedaling.