Yes, it is the beginning of fruit season. Red, ripe, fruit season. A few strawberries have been eaten.
We are drooling over the handful of cherries that just may be ripe by the weekend.
Our raspberry bushes are laden with flowers and green fruit, which should be ripe in the next couple of weeks (probably the day after I leave on vacation . . . oh, well!).
Fruit is so exciting. I love vegetables--peas, spinach, kale, green onions, bok choy, all the delicious goodies we're currently harvesting from our garden--but there is just something special about fruit. It's sweet. It's tangy. Its flavor bursts lusciously against your tastebuds and you forget everything except how delicious it tastes. Mmmm.
It's almost July and I'm not quite sure how it happened. The weather has warmed, at last; the sweet hot air of summer surrounds us, though this afternoon a cooler front whirled through in a scattering of leaves, sprinkles of rain, and bright flashes of lightning, but the storminess, too, is summery.
Last night after dinner I walked to Mt. Sentinel and made my way up the steep trail to the fire road that runs across the western face. I didn't set out to climb up the mountain (if I had, I probably would have worn some other footwear than flip flops!), but that's where my feet led me, and I'm glad they did. The sun blazed golden on the horizon, illumining the clouds that rose above the valley and the encircling mountains. The clouds shone rose and orange, dimming to dusky purple and periwinkle as the sun sank down. The waving grasses near the top of Mt. Sentinel glowed pink against the deep blue eastern sky, and I watched a deer watch me, pausing in her munching as I meandered past.
I love that an evening stroll can take me up the side of a mountain.
Dad and Mom visited two weekends ago, and the June rains let up enough to let us wander the North Hills for an afternoon. We saw myriad birds and flowers: bitterroot (Montana's state flower!)
and lupine, waterleaf and groundsel and penstemon,
mountain bluebirds and meadowlarks, western bluebirds and goldfinches. The highlight of our amble was 1) seeing several mountain bluebirds, which you think can't possibly be as blue as you remember them, and they're not--they're BLUER;
and 2) watching a mountain bluebird family, the father and mother feeding their little fledgling, who must have been just out of the nest.
The parents kept flying away and catching insects, then taking turns bringing them back to their fluffy little birdlet, who seemed very grateful. And hungry.
We were utterly enraptured.
It was a lovely day.
Though time does seems as though it's been whirling by, it helps to remember what I've been doing during these weeks. It helps to set the memories down here, in this little bit of cyberspace, and recall the delights and details of the quickly-passing days. It helps to taste and see the world around me . . . and I am reminded of a poem by Denise Levertov, one that I read in college and that has stuck with me ever since.
It is a reminder.
A motivation.
An encouragement.
We are drooling over the handful of cherries that just may be ripe by the weekend.
Our raspberry bushes are laden with flowers and green fruit, which should be ripe in the next couple of weeks (probably the day after I leave on vacation . . . oh, well!).
Fruit is so exciting. I love vegetables--peas, spinach, kale, green onions, bok choy, all the delicious goodies we're currently harvesting from our garden--but there is just something special about fruit. It's sweet. It's tangy. Its flavor bursts lusciously against your tastebuds and you forget everything except how delicious it tastes. Mmmm.
It's almost July and I'm not quite sure how it happened. The weather has warmed, at last; the sweet hot air of summer surrounds us, though this afternoon a cooler front whirled through in a scattering of leaves, sprinkles of rain, and bright flashes of lightning, but the storminess, too, is summery.
Last night after dinner I walked to Mt. Sentinel and made my way up the steep trail to the fire road that runs across the western face. I didn't set out to climb up the mountain (if I had, I probably would have worn some other footwear than flip flops!), but that's where my feet led me, and I'm glad they did. The sun blazed golden on the horizon, illumining the clouds that rose above the valley and the encircling mountains. The clouds shone rose and orange, dimming to dusky purple and periwinkle as the sun sank down. The waving grasses near the top of Mt. Sentinel glowed pink against the deep blue eastern sky, and I watched a deer watch me, pausing in her munching as I meandered past.
I love that an evening stroll can take me up the side of a mountain.
Dad and Mom visited two weekends ago, and the June rains let up enough to let us wander the North Hills for an afternoon. We saw myriad birds and flowers: bitterroot (Montana's state flower!)
and lupine, waterleaf and groundsel and penstemon,
mountain bluebirds and meadowlarks, western bluebirds and goldfinches. The highlight of our amble was 1) seeing several mountain bluebirds, which you think can't possibly be as blue as you remember them, and they're not--they're BLUER;
and 2) watching a mountain bluebird family, the father and mother feeding their little fledgling, who must have been just out of the nest.
Though time does seems as though it's been whirling by, it helps to remember what I've been doing during these weeks. It helps to set the memories down here, in this little bit of cyberspace, and recall the delights and details of the quickly-passing days. It helps to taste and see the world around me . . . and I am reminded of a poem by Denise Levertov, one that I read in college and that has stuck with me ever since.
It is a reminder.
A motivation.
An encouragement.
O Taste and See
The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see
the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform
into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being
hungry, and plucking
the fruit.
