Perfection...More or Less: June 2025

Sunday, June 1, 2025

It's June, when summer enters on the breath of a whisper.

Upon buying a back issue of the Mindful Magazine to see if it was worth the read, the first issue I picked out interested me, but the other three no. The article 'Allowing Haiku' suggests that the reader might express what they feel in the moment through Haiku to bring a sense of peaceful, awe-inspired expressiveness to their life. It is suggested one takes a breath inbetween reading each Haiku. We are not to judge ourselves for what we come up with. You aren't allowed to either. It wasn't easy to write. I really find it hard to believe mine will bring a 'peaceful, awe-inspired expressiveness' to my life. I can't help laughing at myself.

Upon opening a box of plants

No surprise – it sits here

Staring me straight in the eyes,

Plants on vacation.

Dig a perfect hole -

Free to breathe in the garden.

Wilt, water, wilt, water, wilt.

They love me, or not –

No marriage knot binds us here.

It’s never simple.

I try not to hope,

They’re a cantankerous lot.

Tea, biscuits and jam?

Wind, rain and thunder;

Will they drown - it’s on my mind,

Whatever you say.

It flatters me not

They droop and complain a lot.

Prima donnas all!

The weed patch looks ripe

To embrace its seeds with wind _

A movie? My treat!

It’s always a game;

Garden of quiet laughter

And my sweet sorrows.

“Beauty surrounds us,

but usually,

we need to be walking in a garden to know it."

-Rumi

Under the weather, as a virus has found me and extended its stay, I’m soaking up the heat outside on this beautiful sunny June day. A high thin layer of clouds coats the sky dome, but sunlight finds its way into the garden.

The tree frog gives a long pleading croak, advertising its availability, but I always think of him as a lonely one, void of a partner. Wasps are moving so fast through the spicebush cover surrounding the deck, it’s impossible to identify a single one, but I’m going to guess they are hunting through the greenery for a tasty morsel to bring back to the nest to deposit a delicate egg on.

I’m sipping on hot English Breakfast tea with a spoonful of honey stirred in, as I survey my rather smallish garden for a bit of inspiration. None comes.

(Sigh)

Robins fill the time, seeking out the large stone birdbath to rob it of its cool water, sending drops flying every which way when bathing. Spicebushes are so bushy in the planters around the deck, they camouflage me well, but so are the robins hidden from my view. It’s a garden of subtle sounds that one misses unless one closely listens.

The rush of wind stirring the plants _ a soothing sound bringing back memories of the days when I was out and about hiking through the tall trees... oh, to be young again for just one more hike.

A black thread-waisted wasp lands on the regal cat statue of stone to catch its baring, then off it goes, disappearing into the garden. I could sit here forever, if only I had a bag of salty crinkly potato chips to munch on… I’m off to the pantry.

Back just in time to watch a silent Blue-Jay hop through the top branches of the Blackhaw Viburnum looking for scrumptious berries. A very long series of croaking is coming from the tree frog in the direction of the dogwood tree, as he's getting quite serious on finding a mate. Wild breezes cause the branches of the spicebushes to toss their limbs and leaves about flirtatiously.

A bright cardinal surveys the birdbath for a dip but cuts it short and disappears into the ground cover. Wind is picking up which is usually a signal that the weather is changing. The cloud cover, although still quite high, is thickening. Just a bit past noon, and the usual rainy afternoon is shaping up nicely.

Potter wasps are leaf hopping through the spicebushes to find any small caterpillars. Last year Vic was taught how to take care of the dying bushes and this year, with lots of new growth, they stand with probably no caterpillars at all. I am hopeful this warmer weather will bring in a few spicebush swallowtail butterflies to start the cycle once again.

It's so easy to get wrapped up in the surface beauty of nature and ignore the rest, and most of us do just that; but for everything that lives, there is always something else higher up the scale that eats it. It’s a vicious scenario going on out here right under my nose, but I’m going to chill out, drink a cup of hot honeyed tea and tell myself ‘Life is Beautiful” because in my mind at this moment, it truly is.

Toxomerus geminatus, Eastern Calligrapher syrphid fly

on a fleabane flower.

Adult syrphid colors are “set” by the ambient temperatures

during their pupal period,

so hot weather causes the yellow/orange to increase in color

and the black becomes lighter, and if it was cold the opposite occurs.

Entrance to the rain garden area.

Clematis Viorna

This sedge is growing in full sun,

This appeared on it's own and is 3' wide.

The Cocklebur Weevil was found on the seed heads of the sedge.

Rhodobaenue quinquepunctatus

Family Curculionidae (snout and bark beetles)

Cocklebur Weevil (1/4 to 1/2 inch long).

Feeds on plant parts.

Smiley Face.

The sucking trail of a flower bug.

Plagiognathus arbustorum,

Common Nettle Flower Bug on Fleabane.

A mirid bug that prefers to suck on flowers,

flower buds, and immature fruit.

Occasionally they feed on aphids and their honeydew.

In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away. ~Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "April Days," 1861 [a little altered —tg]