Summer Solstice

When I awoke this morning it was raining hard and thunder was gently rumbling. Such pleasant sounds and ones that I've always found pleasing.  As I lay in bed a while longer listening to the rainfall, my thoughts were of the garden and how nourishing those precious drops are to all that grows out there.

Rainstorms have never bothered me much, especially now that I'm a gardener.  When it rains on warm summer days, I enjoy running in the rain.  It's refreshing, fun, and feels nourishing on some level.  Rainstorms, especially when accompanied by booming thunder claps and lightening strikes, are exhilarating and frightening all at once.

Looking out to the backyard from the kitchen window, everything looked lush and green.

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Garlic bulbs are fattening up, strawberries are turning into ruby jewels on a daily basis, flowers are beginning to form on a couple tomato plants, and raspberries are starting to blush.  We estimate that by this time next week we'll be enjoying the first of the red and black raspberries.

The first four strawberries of the season.
They were (and continue to be) sweet, juicy, and mighty tasty.

Red raspberries!

Black raspberries!

Strawberries!
These babies (3.5 cups) were promptly turned into strawberry jam.

Wednesday afternoon, while John was picking strawberries, he spotted one of our most loved garden dwellers - a praying mantis!  The mantid egg I found while removing the straw blanket from the strawberry bed earlier in the season has hatched.  It is always thrilling to see those incredible creatures, especially in our little section of the world.  This is the first time we're aware of that praying mantis' have created eggs in our yard.  John came inside to share the good news but when we headed back outside, the praying mantis was hiding too well.  Thursday, however, John spotted the little fella again and this time, armed with the camera, we documented our sighting.

Once the rain stopped this afternoon, I ventured out to the garden to pick today's ripe strawberries. Weeds also got pulled, tomato plants secured to their stakes, and then I decided to grab the hedge shears to trim the grass that grows around the corn and bean plants.  Easiest to do while sitting on the ground, a quarter of the way through the process, a rapid, frantic movement in front of me caught my attention.  A tiny mantid was running across the row I was clipping!  Surely my hand, almost instantly reaching out for him, wasn't anymore comforting than the large scissors that had just been leveling his jungle, but when my hand was still, the mantid eventually obliged and jumped on my index finger.

I marveled at his smallness, his powerful albeit tiny forearms, and the fact that his head swiveled to look up at me.  Slowly, I moved my arm in the direction of the row that had already been trimmed and lowered my hand back down to the ground.  The mantid walked the length of my finger like a plank and then jumped back in the grass, quickly making his way to the stem of a bean plant, instantly blending in to the surroundings.  Carefully, I finished trimming the grass while being on the look-out for any of the mantis' siblings.

Thursday's sighting in the strawberry bed.
The giants have me surrounded!

The corn and bean dweller.

It's the first day of summer, there is a full moon in 1 day, 10 hours -this year's supermoon, in fact- and it is still light outside at 20:42:00!  Here's to long, hot days, warm nights, and many al fresco meals made up from garden bounty.

"Lauren's Grape" heirloom poppy

Blooming "Peace" roses

Cheers!