Summer Solstice.

6-22-13 VERMONT: We had 1.6 inches in the rain gauge when we arrived, but none in the last three days. The days are gorgeous and nights cool enough for a jacket.

Now that it’s summer, Vermont is catching up with New Jersey. The rosebay rhododendron here is in bloom about one day after ones in NJ. The gardens here look pretty good, even if attested to by the gardener. The peonies really usher in the solstice. I’ll do the full list of new blooms next post.

Judy is adjusting to her casted leg, and I’m beginning to appreciate all the work she did when I was in the cast.

Brady the horse is in the pasture working on the tall grass. The pasture is magnificent with dozens of different wild flowers and all the different grasses. Some parts of it are dry, some wet, some with rich soil, some poor, some sunny, some shady with all the combinations of those conditions. Each habitat has its own vegetation, so the flower palette changes as you walk for one area to another.


After all those tiny flowers of spring, here's a summer peony.

Photos don't do justice to the wildflower profusion in the pasture, at least mine don't, but these daisies and dianthus plus clover, buttercup, bedstraw and more suggest how sweet it is. It also smells sweet.

The grass is as high as a golden's eye.