June 17: Summer clouds

Summer does have the best clouds. Impressive cumulus that build up by afternoon every day, towering over the land by evening in pillars and anvils, crisp and billowy at the top. If I'm lucky like today, when I walk out from work, there's one in front of the sun.

June 18: Haying time

I drove to the farm this evening. The roadsides have been mowed now, so the profusion of coreopsis and Queen Anne's lace is gone. But there are tall stalks of bearded grass and huge heads of white elderberry blossoms. It's mowing time for the fields too. It's the best time of June. The fields are suddenly smooth and curvy, dotted with large round bales in pleasing patterns. And the smell. Imagine a freshly mowed lawn, but wilder and deeper and sweeter and stretching for miles.