June Activities

 

Summertime Gardening

Repost from August 2015:

This past week, the daytime temperatures have ranged from 95-105F, humidity under 30%, gentle breezes, and terrible air quality due to the many fires west of us in the Yolly Bolly mountains and Trinity range.  Three fire fighters have lost their lives while battling these terrible forest fires.

Our summer garden has been productive this year in terms of tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, kale, zucchini, herbs, and cantaloupes.

We have been pulling up vegetable plants in our sunny garden that have run their course and are now fading away.

The daytime heat has stressed all the plants despite reasonable watering.

The Spirit of Gardening:  Over 3,500 Quotes, Sayings, Facts, or Poems.  Compiled by Mike Garofalo.

The Month of August

 

Summer Season

Months and Seasons Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Verses, Lore, Myths, Holidays Celebrations, Folklore, Reading, Links, Quotations Information, Weather, Gardening Chores Compiled by Mike Garofalo
Winter	Spring	Summer	Fall
January	April	July	October
February	May	August	November
March	June	September	December

July

Repost from July 2024:

We will  have hot weather today - over 93F (34C). This high temperature is infrequent in Vancouver, Washington. 

We did all our watering chores and gardening projects early in the morning.  Then, we rested in the shade in the afternoon and read, listened to music, and napped.

Listening to Adam Hurst on cello Obscura, and 2 albums by the chromatic harmonica virtuoso, Gianluca Littera.

Even a squirrel was lounging below the wisteria vine.

I set down pavers in the area below the back bedroom shower. It is a paved area, part of the back porch, and under total shade of the wisteria vines.

Karen worked in the vegetable garden and on potting various plants.

  

The Spirit of Gardening Website

Sunshine and Shadows - Quotations

"The eastern light our spires touch at morning,
The light that slants upon our western doors at evening,
The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,
Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,
Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.
O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!"
-  T.S. Eliot

"Darkness is to space what silence is to sound, i.e., the interval."
-  Marshall McLuhan, Through the Vanishing Point

"What ideal, immutable Platonic cloud could equal the beauty and perfection of any ordinary everyday cloud floating over, say, Tuba City, Arizona, on a hot day in June?"
-  Edward Abbey 

Most Honored Greening Force

Repost from June 10, 2013:]

"O most honored Greening Force,
 You who roots in the Sun;
 You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
 that earthly excellence fails to comprehend.
 You are enfolded
 in the weaving of divine mysteries.
 You redden like the dawn
 and You burn: flame of the Sun."
 -  Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Viriditas
 


"Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi' glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dew falls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun."
-  John Clare, June 

"Tell you what I like the best --
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, -- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!"
-  James Witcomb Riley, Knee Deep in June

The Spirit of Gardening

The Month of June

Gardening in the Month of July

July - Quotes, Poems, Sayings for Gardners

Months - Quotes

High Summer Feast Day, August 1st

July Gardening Chores 
For Red Bluff, California, USDA Zone 9


Water plants: take advantage of cool morning hours, use daytime shade.
Water plants deeply and less frequently.
Water potted plants carefully on very hot days.
Mow lawns, but don't mow low. 
Mulch and compost: straw, cuttings, leaves, twigs, chips, shredded paper, garbage.
Water compost pile areas. 
Manage cutworms and other garden pests.
Weed around vegetables and shrubs. 
Plant for autumn vegetable crops. 
Use straw mulch to help control weeds and cool soil.
Maintenance on lawn mowing equipment.
Pick and save or eat fresh vegetables and fruits.
Dry fruit in sun. 
Water plants.  Use irrigation ditch water efficiently and effectively. 
Get up early to work in the cool morning hours. 
Thin out excess fruit on trees.
Mulch with straw, chips, compost. 
Train vines on support structures. 
Read, listen to music, relax and sleep in the shade.
Tend to and enjoy annuals in bloom. 


 

Morning Gardening Projects

Summertime afternoon temperatures are now in the 80F - 93F range.  I work outdoors on garden projects starting at 6:30 am.  I rest indoors in the afternoon and evenings.  

July Gardening: Quotes, Notes, Lore and Chores

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."
-  Ada Louise Huxtable

I worked on the area by our mailbox at the southeast edge of our suburban lot.  I weeded, planted more lavender, and placed wood bark chips on the area under the crepe myrtle tree.  My neighbor, Dick, keeps a very nice front yard and garden.

I worked on the area to the garden bed area immediately to the west of our front door.  I still have work to do to complete this morning garden project. 


"Answer July—
Where is the Bee—
Where is the Blush—
Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July—
Where is the Seed—
Where is the Bud—
Where is the May—
Answer Thee—Me—"
-  Emily Dickinson, Answer July 

Gardening in Different Places

Since we now live in the Columbia River Valley in Clark County, Vancouver, Washington, North West USA ... our gardening and yard chores will be different.

I believe that our USDA zone in Vancouver is Hardiness Zone 8a (10F-15F)

Our chore list will change significantly in the coming months.  We now live on a parcel that is .3 acres in the unincorporated area of Vancouver, Washington, while, before we lived for 17 years on a five acre parcel of land in Red Bluff, California.  We lived before in a rural area; now we live in a suburban neighborhood, part of the Portland, Oregon, Metropolitan area.  

One constant is the daily watering of potted plants of summer annuals, and some potted perennials and shrubs.  


July - Quotes, Poems, Sayings for Gardners

Months - Quotes

High Summer Feast Day, August 1st

July Gardening Chores
For Red Bluff, California, USDA Zone 9


Water plants: take advantage of cool morning hours, use daytime shade.
Water plants deeply and less frequently.
Water potted plants carefully on very hot days.
Mow lawns, but don't mow low.
Mulch and compost: straw, cuttings, leaves, twigs, chips, shredded paper, garbage.
Water compost pile areas.
Manage cutworms and other garden pests.
Weed around vegetables and shrubs.
Plant for autumn vegetable crops.
Use straw mulch to help control weeds and cool soil.
Maintenance on lawn mowing equipment.
Pick and save or eat fresh vegetables and fruits.
Dry fruit in sun.
Water plants.  Use irrigation ditch water efficiently and effectively.
Get up early to work in the cool morning hours.
Thin out excess fruit on trees.
Mulch with straw, chips, compost.
Train vines on support structures.
Read, listen to music, relax and sleep in the shade.
Tend to and enjoy annuals in bloom. 


 

Before and After in the Garden

[A repost from the Cloud Hands Blog on June 25th, 2014.]

Our "Sunny Vegetable Garden" changes dramatically from spring to summer.

The two photos below were taken by looking south.  The first photo was taken in early April, and the second in late June.  The "winter garden," where Karen was standing in April, has been cleared and all the onions and garlic harvested. 

 

The two photos below were taken by looking north. The first photo was taken in early April, and the second in late June. Whatever we don't water is dried and brown by June

June Gardening:  Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Lore

Gardening and the Seasons:  Quotes, Poems, Sayings, Lore

Our dog, Bruno, always likes to join us for gardening activities.  He is skilled at digging for gophers and snakes.

This photo was taken in 2005.

The Rain of Our Reality

 

A Sunday in July

Children playing in shallow river pools;
fat grandpas sleeping in the shade.

Burnt leaves on sagging shrubs;
robins munching on wiggling worms.

Cold beer and crispy chips;
music playing from cellphone chips.

I watched them baptize a weeping woman,
now saved from the fires of hell,
safe and soaking wet.

A firecracker cut the laughter,
dogs barked, babies cried,
the smell of powder smoked by.

Hamburgers coated in ketchup red,
laced with lettuce on tired bread,
bit by bit down the hatch,
bellies satisfied at last.

Corndogs and cornbread,
beans and coleslaw;
dirty paper plates in paper bags,
pink vomit on the green grass. 

Riverbed rocks bit their cold toes,
mosquitoes bit their sun burnt backs,
lovers bit their aroused lips,
infants bit their mommies tits.

Dry ground,
centuries of death things
underfoot,
covered by a grey wool blanket
hiding this Distant Past. 

In this way on this day
the thousands of drip drops of experiences
make up
the rain of our reality. 

- Lewis River Park, Battleground, Clark County, Washington
  By Michael P. Garofalo, Poetry 

 

Hot Summer Days

 A high pressure weather system is over the Northwestern USA.  This weekend, the temperature is up to a high of 114F, with 76% humidity.  This is the highest temperature we have experienced in Vancouver, Washington.  

When we lived in Red Bluff, California, the summertime temperatures were quite often over 100F in the summer, but the humidity was very low.    

The house is closed up.  Window shades are all drawn.  We water our yard and garden as soon as it is daylight, around 5:15 am.  If I walk, it is at 6 am.  We do all our chores in the early morning.  We try to relax, rest, read, and watch TV all afternoon.  We have a couple of fans and a small one room air cooler. 

Thankfully, the Federal Bonneville Dam provides our electricity, and the Columbia River our water.  

Basically, sweating and uncomfortable in the afternoon and early evening hours.  Very difficult to be enthusiastic or very energetic.  

The Unconquerable Sun of Summer

"The sun is always a powerful, invincible image, whether it is the weak illumination of the pre winter solstice, or the savage primal energy of midsummer. Long before humanity developed written language humans must have gazed in terrific awe at the reborn sun each morning, how it over came the dangerous dragon of darkness that it sank into each evening, the provider of light, warmth, sustainer of growing vegetation -life itself--this enormous solar edifice quite clearly was one of the earliest forms of worship as man began to fashion a supernatural interpretation of natural phenomenon from the daily spectacle of the dying and reborn sun. Albert Pike makes the following concise statement in his Morals and Dogma: 'To them [aboriginal peoples] he [the sun] was the innate fire of bodies, the fire of Nature. Author of Life, heat, and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no form. He was to them immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his creative energy, that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the Brama of the Hindus, and Mithras of the Persians, and Athom, Amum, Phtha, and Osiris, of the Egyptians, the Bel of the Chaldeans, the Asonai of the Phœnicians, the Adonis and Apollo of the Greeks, became but personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world's existence.'"
-   Christ, Constantine, Sol Invictus: The Unconquerable Sun   By Ralph Monday

June: Quotes, Poems, Sayings

Summer Solstice Celebration

Summer Activities: Reading, Gardening, Celebrations, Travel

Every month, I browse, fast read, or read ten to twenty books, and carefully read or study two or three books on the following subjects: the history of ideas, intellectual history, zeitgeist studies, philosophy of history, biographies.  

Intellectual History - My hypertext notebook

This month, for example: 

Whitehead, Alfred North.  Science and the Modern World, 1926.  

Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, 4 Volumes.  Philip P. Wiener, Editor in Chief.  New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968, 1973.  For example, Volume 1: 677 pages, Contains: Abstraction in the Formation of Concepts to Design Argument.  An outstanding resource for under $70.00 for the four volume paperback set.  VSCL. 

 

I am retired, so I am like a college student again.  I use libraries and bookstores to acquire new and used  titles, and reread books books in my home library.  I read articles on the Internet and this counts for six books.  

Currently, I am reading books and articles related to the history of thinking about time, processes, the meaning of the future, process theology, ecology, feelings of duration, Whitehead, Hartshorn, Cobb.

Process Philosophy

Getting ready for Summer Solstice Celebrations, and busy with gardening at home.  Our California weather permitted vegetable gardening all year, with "summer veggies" from May to October.  The Solstice (June 21st) is one kind of a "Mid-Summer" celebration of maximum Sun during the day, fertility, productivity of agriculture, gratitude for blessings from the Earth, exuberance, zest ...

Our Summer 2021 travel adventures include a trip to cabins and boating on Silver Lake, Fourth of July fun, a wedding in Spokane, river boat trips, Olympic National Park (Forks, La Push), and mid-summer visits to the Pacific Coast.  Canada is still closed due to pandemic flu rules, so our trip to British Columbia (300 miles north) will wait till later.  

Pulling Onions by Mike Garofalo

Blessed with Peaches

This peach, these peppers,
These grapes, these tomatoes
Will all soon become me.
Such a tasty fact.
I am That and That is Me.
Bless the gardens!
Bless the gardeners!

Bless the kitchens!

Bless the cooks!  

Bless the food!
-  Mike Garofalo, Pulling Onions

Jen Miller recently sent me her summary of the benefits of eating peaches.  Her lengthy and interesting article is titled: "12 Health Benefits of Peaches, According to Science (+10 Peach Recipes)."  

Peach trees and peaches have a special place in my heart.  I carefully tended the peach trees in our former orchard, but a bountiful crop was often just a gift, grace, luck. 

"In China, the peach was said to be consumed by the immortals due to its mystic virtue of conferring longevity on all who ate them. The divinity Yu Huang, also called the Jade Emperor, and his mother called Xi Wangmu also known as Queen Mother of the West, ensured the gods' everlasting existence by feeding them the peaches of immortality. The immortals residing in the palace of Xi Wangmu were said to celebrate an extravagant banquet called the Pantao Hui or "The Feast of Peaches". The immortals waited six thousand years before gathering for this magnificent feast; the peach tree put forth leaves once every thousand years and it required another three thousand years for the fruit to ripen. Ivory statues depicting Xi Wangmu's attendants often held three peaches. The peach often plays an important part in Chinese tradition and is symbolic of long life. One example is in the peach-gathering story of Zhang Daoling, who many say is the true founder of Taoism. Elder Zhang Guo, one of the Chinese Eight Immortals, is often depicted carrying a Peach of Immortality." - Wikipedia

Peaches are native to China and introduced to Persia via the Silk Road before Christian times.

Xi Wang Mu, Queen Mother of the West, keeps the Immortals fed with the Sacred Peaches.  "No one knows Her beginning, no one knows Her end."

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Xi Wangmu, Braham, the Divine, the Supreme Universal Spirit, the Unmanifested and Manifested, the Absolute, the Everlasting, the Shining, Everything, Food for Life, God ...

Karen also enjoys our crop of peaches in the summer months in Red Bluff.

Ah, Such a tasty peach!!  

To get peaches in the summer, you must plant bare root peach trees in the winter.  Karen and I have planted nearly 100 trees in our orchard in Red Bluff, California.  We will miss these trees when we move to Vancouver, Washington, in April of 2017.  Someone else will enjoy them for decades.

Written in 2016.  

Drag Me Down Damn Hot

For the past 10 days, we have had daytime temperatures from 105F to 112F. 

Other than 6 hours in the morning (5:30 am - 10:30 am), it is just too damn hot for me in the afternoon.  I get all my gardening chores, watering chores, and outdoor chores done in the early morning.  

As I get older, the extreme heat is much harder for me to tolerate.  

It has sapped my energy and interest in just about all activities.  

I did enjoy, yesterday afternoon, sitting in front of a fan and watching a DVD recording of the opening day of the Tour de France, and sipping iced tea.  

Wild Hues to the Sultry Sun

In Red Bluff, we seldom have sultry summer days.  Our temperatures climb to 100F in the daytime, but the humidity is typically low at 17% to 40%.  

Our apricot trees have finished their fruiting season.  Now we have nectarines, plums, and figs ripening.  

"O most honored Greening Force, 
 You who roots in the Sun;
 You who lights up, in shining serenity, within a wheel
 that earthly excellence fails to comprehend. 
 You are enfolded
 in the weaving of divine mysteries. 
 You redden like the dawn
 and You burn: flame of the Sun."
 -  Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Viriditas 

"Now summer is in flower and natures hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
With glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streakd woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dew falls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun."
-  John Clare, June 

"Tell you what I like the best --
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, -- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!"
-  James Witcomb Riley, Knee Deep in June

The Spirit of Gardening

The Month of June

Summer Vacation and My Retirement

Today is the last day of my weekly part-time employment for this school year, 2015-2016.  I begin my summer vacation, tomorrow.  This vacation will run from June 3rd until August 18th. 

I will focus on enjoying my home and gardens this summer.  Taijquan playing, walking, gardening, weightlifting, and teaching yoga and taijiquan will be my somatic practices; albeit modified to help my right hip and right knee to mend from a recent hard fall I took while running.  I intend to travel to Oregon and Washington.  Plenty of reading and writing on hot summer afternoons.  Family visits and outings. Researching the subject of Hedonism.

I work part-time, 3 days and 24 hours a week for the Corning Union Elementary School District serving 2,100 students in grades K-8.  I've worked part-time for the CUESD since 1999.  I am a classified supervisor.  I have managed five libraries, textbooks and consumables, websites, educational software support, and have written and managed budgets for $4.5 million in grants for the district.  I work as a substitute teacher as needed.  It has been an enjoyable, challenging, and worthwhile employment opportunity.   

I have decided that the upcoming 2016-2017 school year, which runs from August 18th, 2016 until June 3rd, 2016 will be my final year at this job.  I will be 71 years of age when I retire in June of 2017.  I have been employed since I was 15 years old - 54 years of work.   

Hopefully, I can live a few more years and remain in good health and be able to enjoy myself, prosper, learn, create, and contribute something positive to others.  

Beware of Working Outdoors in High Temperatures

Summer daytime temperatures in Red Bluff, California, have consistently climbed to from 95F to 108F the past month. 

Last Friday, I worked hard outdoors all day.  The hard work and high temperatures over- stressed my 70 year old body.  I needed to rest indoors all Saturday from 11 am, and plan to do the same today. 

Extra water and minerals are important to use during these hot days.  However, older persons need to be sensible about how much vigorous activity can be done in high temperatures. 

Be careful and stay healthy!  

Summer Work Projects

I have been working each morning since late May on renovating our back porch.  About 25% of the porch roof needed replacement.  Old screens and doors needed to be removed and then replaced.  It porch roof support wood needed to be cleaned, fixed, and repainted.  The side walls of the house needed to be cleaned and repainted.  Roof gutters needed cleaning.  Branches hanging over the house roof needed to be removed.  It has been a big project!

My ailing shoulder has slowed my pace somewhat; but, I continue to make progress.  Since temperatures in June have been well above 100F every day, afternoon work is not possible for me.

Karen has helped as time and energy permit.

I walk and do Taijiquan in the morning from 4:45 am to 6 am.  Then I begin work on home improvement projects.  Around noon, I quit outdoor work, and come indoors to read and write.  Because of my shoulder problem, I've not done any heavy weightlifting at the gym during the entire months of June.

This is how the back porch looked in 2006:

Divine Illumination, Sol Invictus, Good Day Sunshine

"The sun is always a powerful, invincible image, whether it is the weak illumination of the pre winter solstice, or the savage primal energy of midsummer. Long before humanity developed written language humans must have gazed in terrific awe at the reborn sun each morning, how it over came the dangerous dragon of darkness that it sank into each evening, the provider of light, warmth, sustainer of growing vegetation -life itself--this enormous solar edifice quite clearly was one of the earliest forms of worship as man began to fashion a supernatural interpretation of natural phenomenon from the daily spectacle of the dying and reborn sun. Albert Pike makes the following concise statement in his Morals and Dogma: 'To them [aboriginal peoples] he [the sun] was the innate fire of bodies, the fire of Nature. Author of Life, heat, and ignition, he was to them the efficient cause of all generation, for without him there was no movement, no existence, no form. He was to them immense, indivisible, imperishable, and everywhere present. It was their need of light, and of his creative energy, that was felt by all men; and nothing was more fearful to them than his absence. His beneficent influences caused his identification with the Principle of Good; and the Brama of the Hindus, and Mithras of the Persians, and Athom, Amum, Phtha, and Osiris, of the Egyptians, the Bel of the Chaldeans, the Asonai of the Phœnicians, the Adonis and Apollo of the Greeks, became but personifications of the Sun, the regenerating Principle, image of that fecundity which perpetuates and rejuvenates the world's existence.'"
-   Christ, Constantine, Sol Invictus: The Unconquerable Sun   By Ralph Monday

June: Quotes, Poems, Sayings

Summer Solstice Celebration

Gayatri Mantra

Oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ

tát savitúr váreṇ(i)yaṃ

bhárgo devásya dhīmahi

dhíyo yó naḥ pracodáyāt

 

Oh God, the Protector, the basis of all life, Who is self-existent, Who is free from all pains and Whose contact frees the soul from all troubles, Who pervades the Universe and sustains all, the Creator and Energizer of the whole Universe, the Giver of happiness, Who is worthy of acceptance, the most excellent, Who is Pure and the Purifier of all, let us embrace that very God, so that He may direct our mental faculties in the right direction.

Alternative meaning
Om, that (Divine Illumination) which pervades the physical plane (Bhu Loka), astral plane (Bhuvar Loka or Antariksha Loka) and or the celestial plane (Suvar Loka or Swarga Loka),
That Savitr (Divine Illumination) which is the most adorable,
On that Divine Radiance we meditate,
May that enlighten our intellect and awaken our spiritual wisdom.