Old Tater's Almanac

June 24

Nativity of St. John the Baptist~~Midsummer Day

For one week now the length of the days has been 14 hrs. 24 mins., the longest days of 2008. But the sun will continue to set at its latest until July 6, so Tater says, Stretch, breathe, watch the bees and enjoy midsummer.

From William Cullen Bryant:

Go forth under the open sky/And list to nature's teachings.

Or observe from your back porch. Tater's Quick Quiz: What do you see in both of these pictures? Look closely.

Jupiter is appearing earlier at night, and the hot humid weather of earlier in the month have gone away, and the days are sunny and showery and nights are cool.

"Perhaps you have felt [the truth of your essential goodness] on some rare day in early summer, when you have been alone in a wood on a blue-bell carpet, and your eyes, wandering to the hedge-wall, have seen it white with may; all around you there has been a silence--a silence that strikes like a blow; and suddenly it ceases to be silence for the birds are singing, and you wonder how long that music has been there without your noticing it. You are right away from the world...."

Ernest Raymond, Through Literature to Life: an Enthusiasm and an Anthology, 1928

Tater will work on his crossword puzzle now, while Star Cat watches for jays.

Waiting for Christmas

It once was July, and I was in Rhode Island. Now my camera's still in the shop, and I'm lucky to have a store of summer pictures, to remember Little Rhody by. Because I won't be going up there for the holidays, not until March. I get to stay home, trim a tree, and be cozy, once I've mailed off my New England presents. There's nothing like a vacation at home. We had snow on Sunday, though most melted in. But all the children at Luther's birthday party were out sledding on the wet, snow-sprinkled hills, and playing in the magic garden until dark.

Hot July brings gilly-flowers/Apricots and cooling showers.....

The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings

~~~ "Happy Thought" from A Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922.

That's one side of life, and a good one, for those who CAN say it: we SHOULD take this attitude, if we can. And then we should get on with the work of making more of the world that happy. Simple, but true. And hard to do.

On July 1, more less the year's midpoint, here's to the power of poetry and "happy thoughts.'

Today, July 1, is Canada Day. Venus is bright in the evening in Leo but slips to the south throughout the month.

Art by C.S. Hyde, circa 1980s-90s