Summer Solstice 2024

 

*outside, it is still dark - and I want to sleep*

I hit the snooze button to try to slip back into dreams...

 

Get up, get up - you'll miss it - the spirit animal tugs at me, it's not my dog, she's downstairs sleeping, but it does the trick as good as any real nose

 

ten more minutes, for the 101 year old woman to tell me what I did wrong with the brown sugar, oh, she's not going to, I have to figure it out myself... 

 

 

pull myself out of bed, remember it is the day, assemble myself and heat up a cup of coffee, stagger out into the already bird-chirping sky-lightening world, long after the moment I would normally push myself out into the world on this day - which is usually before the full veil of dark lifts, when I am still uncertain of even where to put a foot down, much less my wits

 

I think about how I have 'two tries' this year, solstice, and my birthday, days following each other, to see the world as this - and I wonder if I will use both of them, if that is what this is for, comparison...

 

But I am here, moving through the world - and ready to see what it has brought me here for at this moment. And a bird passes overhead, up above the power lines above me, as I am admiring the pale blue light of sky... long before actual sunrise, before any pinkening has come to it. And as I walk, make the turns as I am using to making them - it strikes me at one moment all this sense of scale of the environment, as the colors begin to resolve themselves into pink mimosas and yellow rudbeckia - as the gray of the road and the green of the forest separates into layered and tiered colors...

 

I walk home even before true dawn, look back at the road one time to see the pink fingers coming across the sky - my alarm has not even rung yet - I step into the house and grab up some pens, sit with my dog on the porch and try to capture this - yes, I am small in the world, and it is in motion, and I am here to experience it.

time

It's not about actually seeing the sunrise, although that can be part of it, and it is a thing of beauty.  It is about watching the shapes become distinct objects, seeing color return where there was darkness and gray, about listening to the world in its entirety as the light changes over - the rain in the leaves, the wind, the birds and bats and bugs and all other animals that signal to each other as the light returns and the darkness lifts.  It is about delving deep into thoughts, connections, communication with the world and with this moment over years continuing forward and back.

Birthday and beading

I had my birthday walk this morning, and watched the sun come up.  Then we hung out at the house for a bit.  I accidentally broke my shell bracelet, and rebeaded it with other scraps to make something new, then went right on making a necklace with the rest of them and a huge pretty shell I had never used in my bead collection. 

I finished reading the Catherynne Valente book.. 'In the City of Coin and Spice' (volume 2 orphan tales) and it was so much.. I cried in the middle, and also in the end.  It shocked and intrigued and delighted and filled you to bursting with both tears and wonder... (In the Night Garden, volume 1).   And the stories overlap and intertwine and pluck the same note on different instruments, retell old tales and tell other ones you are sure mean something else... and in the end, I was still surprised as something never said I thought was true was not.. and it changed everything again.  

We went to town for cat food and dental floss, and picked up a few more beads and the Real Ghostbusters cartoon set for my birthday, which I had wanted, but didn't want to spend that much on it... we are watching it now.  Esme made the green bracelet all by herself from the beads she picked, and I made t he other two bracelets with what my kit had and the new box I bought.

green beans and cucumbers from the garden tonight...

June 21st

My father and stepmother stopped by yesterday for several hours to catch up and spend time with Esme.  We had a good time and they saw chickens, garden, puppies, kittens... a very much grown little girl :)

This morning I did my usual birthday thing - and it was very pretty in the sunrise up at the top of the road - the sunflowers were just beginning to bloom.. the bats and birds and bees and other insects were all around, and the world was full of life and waking up.  I took a few hours in the garden - then a nap... as sleeping was not so good last night.

Esme, Mark and I went out and took some photos a little while ago.  She is using the older camera we have in some of the pictures down below.

The following pictures are taken by Esme (or with that camera in a few obvious examples)

She was very proud of the bugs on this one. 

silly :)



And a picture from the visit that Mark caught when I was opening a present.  We really need to catch some more photos next time!

Winter Solstice

I am another half a year older. The days will start to get longer again from here forward. Planting time is about three months away, or less... it sure doesn't feel like it. And of course, Christmas, and the season of being together with the family and giving real thanks for all that has become and will be towards the new year.

Grandpa Henry is home from the hospital. We hope he gives himself enough rest in bed to truly recover. Please don't push yourself too hard! Esme was so happy yesterday she could have nearly spun through the floor telling me about how she went to 'help Grandma and Daddy and Esme we go to the store, and no Mama, and we shop - and then Grandpa! We found Grandpa!'

I was home early and was going to have a late day today - so I broke out the sewing project. I chose another McCalls 8001 dress in navy blue with a lower waist treatment and it turned out quite well. It doesn't look half as 'Amish' as the last dress did - a bit 'avant garde' with the lower waist and the rest seems to fall perhaps 'Japanese' because of the same formal sleeves and the Japanese rabbit fabric. Esme wore it while playing Portal with Daddy on his computer (she mostly is just a back seat driver) and Daddy and I puzzled through several levels together, as well. My semi-left handedness makes the controls frustrating but Mark is able to do the 'fiddly' bits of dexterity and the problem-solving is really refreshing. I finished the dress in three hours even which is a pretty good time run for me. I need to wash it before any pictures come up since a glass of milk found it's way onto it and all of Esme's bedding minutes before bed last night.

I don't have much other news at this point... working on post-Christmas gifts to send out in the mail and still have to wrap more than half of the Christmas day items. I need to get an orange and some chocolate coins for Esme's stocking... she liked that last year. Basically I feel that it just can't really be Christmas yet - working in retail will do that to you. 'Christmas' starts just after or sometimes even before Halloween there, and by the time it arrives everything seems like it has been there forever - and the day itself creeps up, usually to emerge that morning as 'oh yea - this is the real thing.... wow'. I guess that is the way it should be.

//growl// My older sister keeps calling Esme 'Isabella'. She sent a Christmas card to her under that name today saying that 'she loves her even though she has never met her' (there are reasons for that) and saying she has this special present she bought for her when she was born that has her name on it and she has never been able to get it to here - she hopes she can send it etc etc.. ' *growl again* I'd really just rather not deal with all of that and send it to the round file. My mom has memory problems and was able to get 'Esme' somewhere in the first year - and my sister has it written on numerous things as well as all over Facebook to help her out... and still goes off and writes something else. She just knows how to push my buttons - from anyone else I would brush it off.... but I have my sister feeling that it is intentional to see what I am 'going to do about it.' btw: her daughter is 'McKayla'... would she like it if I sent her a letter addressed to Michelle?

Summer Solstice in the garden

our first gladiolus of the season about to bloom
There are some zinnias getting ready, too!

Today is the summer solstice, and also my birthday. I woke up at five this morning and watched the sunrise with the dogs out in the cleared field. The open packages of pumpkins and a few other 20 cent packages went into good black earth out where I can look at them periodically. It felt like a year for 'cultivation'... I like to spend that hour or so as the sun comes up thinking about what the last year has been about, and what the next one might be.

Then I found a beautiful moth in the garden, and went inside to get the camera.


A beautiful moth
It is a female 'Io' moth, Automenis io, according to the
pictures at this article on Saturniid Moths

I continued taking pictures of the things I found in the garden.


The bean fence we ran and planted seeds near the other day. Nothing is up, yet.


A frog that stopped to pose



more bees in the squash

We went to the library and bought some used books, then came back home. Esme and I spent some time pulling weeds in the back of the garden. She is allowed highly supervised entrances into the garden until she hurts something.. we planted an 'amaryllis' plant a friend gave me into the garden and Esme was very good, up until she started waving around pulled cornstalks from the mulch pile. She then stepped on the 'amaryllis'.. the 's are because it does not look like an amaryllis, and is unmarked. I don't think she killed it, but it was looking unhappy after that. Oh well :( I also planted the broom corn (milo) and then let Esme back into the garden (after her drama queen at being thrown out had ended naturally) and we watered the 'babies', amaryllis and broom corn seeds and a few other things that looked a little parched. It promises to rain today, but has not yet produced. I do hope if it rains it does not have high winds to damage anything else!


black eyed peas


tiny fungi


Pinto pods
The yellow one with purple spots is ripe


The pumpkin has grown this much!

Whipporwill Southern Peas on Etsy from a very local (to me) grower who states they have been in their family for four generations. Mark says they are 'climatically already here...' so I am ordering a package.

Winter Solstice

Still battling the headache, so I barely noticed that it is winter solstice! Mark and Esme went out shopping today and apparently hit three towns looking for stuff, some of it sneaky.... pretty cool as Mark does not like crowds and there were lots of them out there. He says he bought Esme a 'big gift' spontaneously - also surprising. After that I wonder if I should spontaneously (haha not so much now) get the other thing I was thinking about for her.

So it is the longest night of the year. After tomorrow they will start getting shorter again and more daylight. YIPPEE! I just hope Esme lets me sleep in a tiny bit tomorrow, some time past 7:30 am... as I don't need to be into work until after one. But - it might be nice to go out a bit earlier and be sneaky myself.

Fathers Day, Solstice and Thirty

Esme seeing the sunrise and saying what's dat?


sunrise baby


Summer Solstice sunrise over cornfield

Wow, Father's Day and Summer Solstice today, that only happens once how many years? And because it is Solstice, it is also my birthday. That makes Thirty. Yipe.

This is how we celebrated. The sun rose between 5:35 and 5:45 am. We got everything set the night before and Mark knew just the place to go to get a good view.


my birthday tradition - coffee, blanket, sunrise

Mark doesn't have any big plans today, reading a book - maybe going out to lunch.

Summer Solstice

I usually get up at dawn to watch the sunrise on the Solstice, because I was born around 7:30. However, this morning I didn't feel a need to go sit in the sun and ask for 'answers'... I woke up with the sun coming in our windows and across the trees in the yard - and Mark asleep across from me. I had a soft pillow drawn up under my stomach, and our baby nestled there (not kicking, although she had been moving actively just before I went to sleep). I didn't need to go look for answers - because this feels sweet and right. I smiled and went back to sleep for a while.

About nine I went for a walk down to the lake. I sat on the big sandstone rock there and looked out over the mirror surface of the water. The sun was warm, and the blue of the sky was reflected with all the greens of the trees. There are a myriad of grasses, mosses and other life at the lake. I watched fish jump and swim just under the surface, small spiders build their webs betweeen blades of grass, and dragonflies danced out over the lake, fishing for smaller bugs. A mockingbird flew in from a tree to snatch a dragonfly right out of the air. A blue heron took flight across the lake.

Instead of looking for answers I was just soaking in all of the experience. The structure of life, and its many forms, all of what I could see from one small spot on Earth. The colors, and sounds and warmth of that place was alive yet serene. Instead of looking within for a birthday mediatation, I was looking outward and letting it come in.

I'll still be looking for messages, if not expecting them to answer anything. The universe is full of messages and experiences to contemplate on and interpret. It's just part of what I've been exploring all of my life - the journey of being human and stopping to try to understand the moment as well as the destination.

Dreamweaving

Still working on the dream bag weaving. It is now 8.5 of 13 inches. The summer solstice is in two days, and it probably won't be done in time. But, at least it has spurred me to work on it some more. It has gotten noticeably narrower as I go up. In past weavings I've taken a 'guide-string' out from the sides and stretched the weaving taut across the frame here and there as I go up. This is such a large frame and such a small weaving, it didn't seem plausible. I'll have to get a small lap-frame later to make small weavings and save this large frame for vertical belts and larger pieces.

I've been feeling our baby move more and more - and Mark has been able to feel what he called a 'squidge' or 'squirming' at one point when I felt she was being really active. We are twenty weeks today and it's about time for others to be able to feel her movements besides me! She really doesn't like it when I put dishes in the dishwasher - she starts to squirm a lot (for something so small) and then calms down when I finish. I guess that is because there is a lot of bending down and getting back up and that must be rocking her 'apartment' walls so bad she can't sleep ;)

The little 'tickles' and 'swishes' I was feeling during the last month are giving way to taps and tiny thumps, especially towards the lower part of my belly. Up on the top of my belly (where I first felt her) it still feels like little twinges and swishes under the surface.



Also, we still have orchids blooming! This is the last one to bloom so far.