Summer Solstice

Early summer has settled on the Willamette Valley. On Solstice morning, I rode out to Sunbow to spend the morning mulching tomatoes and pulling oversized weeds away from purple cabbages just starting to head up in the fields. The light was glorious—clear blue sky, bright sunshine dancing on leaves. The fava beans were shoulder high. Some parsnips were going to seed in one corner, mustardy yellow flowers in umbel spray formation. On the ride home, the air smelled of ocean, and forest, and earth mingled together in the light breeze, with a little cow poop thrown in. Wild daisy, dandelion, and vetch bloomed by the side of the road. Wheat straw mulch had sprouted and the seedheads were formed and turning golden.
Back home, the potato beds were waist high and blooming, the young jays arguing over whose yard this is, and I harvested a quart and a half of honey from the hive on Sunday. We had peas and cauliflower for dinner last night—so nice to eat a vegetable with substance, after months of greens—and I’ve been picking raspberries along the berry alley for about a week.
We had company for dinner on Solstice evening. We ate outside for the first time this season. Goat cheese and crackers, olives and pickles to start, followed by salmon, fresh salad and broccoli, rhubarb and berry pie with ice cream. Fresh mint tea. It was light until after ten. We did not have to get up in the morning…Summer has begun.