So today is the day we all live for, June 1st and
although not the official start of summer it seems to be the day when we all
start celebrating summer. May is always a fickle time as when Frost wrote, “The wind blows cold, when it is summer
in the light and winter in the shade.” But June is the hump month; when at
least in the Central Minnesota lake country, the tomatoes plants can finally go
in the ground. The boat yards, where thousands of blue covered pontoons and
boats sat out the winter are now mostly empty and the crafts are back in the
lake where they belong. Docks with squeaky wheels got pushed out into the
depths and fishing boats now putt along the shorelines trolling for the big
one. Patio doors are opened and houses are being aired out. In a week or so
school will be out and children’s voices, hard at play, will ring across the
lake.
Noisy honkers paddle along the shore with goslings bobbing
behind them looking for a lucrative lawn to gobble on. Fawns on wobbly legs
scamper to keep up with mom and cautious motorists watch, not only for the does
crossing the roads but what is behind them. Babies of every size and shape our
coming out of nests and burrows. Alfred Tennyson wrote in his poem Locksley
Hall and I quote, “In the spring a young
mans fancy lightly turns to thought’s of love.” I maintain it goes way
beyond those young men, if the birds, fish, and critters out here are any
example of love and courtship.
I still love summer so much, even though I am in the autumn
of my life and not as active anymore. As I write today, outside of my office
window humming birds dart in and out of the feeder. If man could build a plane,
that flew like they do, we would rule the skies. A Robin sits on a fence post a
few feet away, half of an earthworm hanging out of her mouth. She built her
nest over my back door so she gets interrupted a lot as I come and go but she
has successfully hatched a brood and now she has to feed them. Their little
bills point skyward waiting for a morsel.
By the time this gets printed June will be mostly over and
it will all be old news. As much as June is so repetitive each year it never
stops amazing me. There was a time in my life when the rigors of everyday life
overshadowed anything Mother Nature had to offer me but old age and retirement
now bring it all front and center. I look to Hemingway for a proper explanation
of it all. He wrote, “When spring came,
even the false spring there were no problems except where to be happiest. The
only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making
engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of
happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.” I
have stood and looked into the office window of where Earnest Hemmingway wrote.
It is a secluded room over a garage behind the house in Key West and now I know
why.
There will be June days long after we are all gone and even
if people are successful at destroying all Mother Nature brings to us, she will
fix it again and it will live on.
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