Sunrise this morning was at 3:19 am, with sunset at 12:23 am tomorrow morning for 21 hours and 4 minutes of daylight. That’s a little misleading, though, because the sun at its lowest is only a little more than 2° 25’ below the northern horizon – enough that the sky is quite bright, and colors are easy to see. We had a few sprinkles of rain yesterday evening and a chance of scattered thunderstorms this afternoon, but it’s still pretty dry. We had only .04” precipitation in May, .56” below normal, and so far June has produced .02”.

View out my front door this morning, showing the wild roses to the right.

The heat wave has passed, with forecasts mostly in the 70’s. The iris are in bloom, the strawberries and wild roses covered in blossom, and the domesticated roses are leafing out, if not yet showing buds. Beans and beets are up, and so are the first of the pea seedlings. I am waiting with increasing impatience for the topsoil so I can fill in the fourth raised bed, just increased in height by 8”, and plant the rest of the beans, the carrots and the rest of the herbs. Not to mention the flower boxes.

Two more weeks to the solstice, when summer “officially” starts and the sun will dip only about a degree and a half below the horizon. We’re already seeing a slowdown in how fast the day length is increasing, and in a little over two weeks the increase will have slowed to zero, and day length will start decreasing again.

Now if we can just avoid forest fires ….