No doubt about it, it is summer now. The field daisies have been in bloom since mid-June, and now come the black-eyed Susans, whose color smacks you in the eye. I find in Gray’s Manual of Botany that color is given simply as orange-yellow. To me it is a special brassy golden color, full of sunlight, a color that no artist I can remember except Van Gogh ever used.
~ Hal Borland
(Hal Borland’s Book of Days)
It’s been so sweet listening to our cardinals sing this summer, and now they have some youngsters exploring the world around them.
This one seemed particularly interested in our birdbath so I was able to get some fuzzy pictures through the sliding glass doors. He kept picking up and putting down catkins, splinters, and twigs, as if he was learning what might or might not be edible. He never did go into the water, though.
So, art thou feathered, art thou flown,
Thou naked thing? — and canst alone
Upon the unsolid summer air
Sustain thyself, and prosper there?
Shall no more with anxious note
Advise thee through the happy day,
Thrusting the worm into thy throat,
Bearing thine excrement away?
Alas, I think I see thee yet,
Perched on the windy parapet,
Defer thy flight a moment still
To clean thy wing with careful bill.
And thou are feathered, thou art flown;
And hast a project of thine own.
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
(The Fledgling)
Monday morning Tim was impressed to find 10 inches of rain in his gauge, from Tropical Storm Chantal. It was only a tropical depression when it got here Sunday afternoon, and there were no areal or flash flood warnings until after the storm was underway. Only then did the warnings start coming in. I lost count of how many times the warning alarms on my cell phone went off. Because we’re at a higher elevation and not in a flood zone we had no idea about what was unfolding in other parts of Carrboro and Orange County. But we knew it was raining hard here for a very long time.
Around noon we decided to drive up to Hillsborough to see what the Eno River looked like. The Riverwalk was closed because the river had flooded at least 19 feet above flood level and had damaged the wooden walkway. In these pictures it had receded some, but parts of the walkway were still under water. We met a public works employee who said they couldn’t open until the water receded, the damage was assessed, and repairs were made. She expects it to be closed for several weeks.
Then we drove down to Chapel Hill to check out Bolin Creek. Not sure how high the creek had gotten but after we left and drove alongside it I saw a picnic table slammed into the bank of the creek. And a plastic chair caught on a tree a little farther along.
Several people we talked to were comparing this storm damage to what Hurricane Fran left behind in September 1996, but we weren’t here for that, so I couldn’t say. We didn’t go into the part of Chapel Hill that flooded and apparently made the national news, but I do wonder about our grocery store down there. We’ll see on Thursday, senior discount day, and therefore our food shopping day. 😉
Today we’re under a heat advisory with heat index values ranging from 105°F to 109°F expected. We never lost power during the storm and I am so grateful to have air conditioning! We’re fine. But my heart goes out to those outside trying to clean up and repair damage after this storm.
Saturday afternoon I opened box #9 of the 14 family history boxes I’m going through. In it I found this magazine page, torn from the August 1915 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. The portrait sketch of Miss Helen Hamilton was done by Harrison Fisher, an American artist born in 1875 in Brooklyn, New York, known for his illustrations of women.
Turns out Helen Hamilton was a second cousin of Tim’s grandmother, Allegra Hamilton. They were great-granddaughters of Benjamin Hamilton (1792-1880). Helen was about 19 years old in this sketch. She went on to marry Frederick Vincent and Allegra married Tim’s grandfather, Karl Rodgers. I wonder how well they knew each other, as Helen lived in California and Allegra lived in New York. I don’t know most of my second cousins.
This box is densely packed with newspaper clippings, correspondence, and research notes from Tim’s great-grandmother, Gertrude Hubbard. It’s going to take me a long time to get it organized! That’s okay, though, I’ve got a long hot summer ahead of me.
Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying the cardinals singing in the wax myrtle tree outside my kitchen window every morning.
A June landscape is incomplete without water. Best of all, the river; but if not this, then a creek, a brook, or even the quiet mill-pond. However pleasant the day may be, the breeze cool, the blossoms bright, the shade dense, the sunshine tempered, there still is something wanting. The world has an unfinished look when there is no water in view, and wild life is largely of the same opinion. I have often found many an upland field almost deserted when the meadows and the river bank were crowded.
~ Charles Conrad Abbott
(Days Out of Doors)
🌻
The sun is rich
And gladly pays
In golden hours,
Silver days,
And long green weeks
That never end.
~ John Updike
(A Child’s Calendar, June)
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Everywhere, from sunup to sunup, the world is full of song. The days are hot, hot, and all the day long I listen to the bees lifting from flower to flower, to the watchful chipmunk sounding its chock chock chock alarm while the red-tailed hawk wheels, crying, high in the sky. I can’t see the songbirds in the dappled light of a thousand leafy branches, but I can hear them calling from the trees.
~ Margaret Renkl
(The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year)