Summer Solstice

6-20-08 VERMONT: The solstice has just passed and the sun is now slowly sinking southward toward the equator and autumn, but we do have the summer ahead. It doesn’t feel much like it today. It was rainy and in the sixties, barely in the sixties, with showers. The house was cold and damp, but a fire warmed things up.

We have a duck, a female mallard, who visits the pond almost every day. She lands, swims around for fifteen minutes, quacks, stands on the rocks and then flies away. The dogs stare in bewilderment. There are also two turtles in the pond dropped off by a neighbor who found them on the road. The turtles are very cautious when sunning on the rocks. With the least sound from the house, they both dash into the water.

New blooms: water lilies, hesperis.