As distinct from Junie, you know. I love June! June is the Friday of Summer. (And Spring is the Friday of the year, which is why I choose it as my favorite season even though I probably love Fall just as much.) In June, summer is just beginning and feels like it might last forever. The days are still getting longer. The clouds are glorious and the weather usually is too. You still have so many things to look forward to…and everyone plays outside late into the warm evenings…and the sunrises make it worthwhile to get up early and drive the children to all the hundred places they seem to have to go.
And the roses! The roses are out in June. I planted all my roses from bare-root starts last year. And then we had SUCH a hot summer with so little rain, and our drip line wasn't working well for some of the time, and after we went on a trip I was truly sure they would ALL die. I was very sad.
But then, this year, they have come up beautifully! Even a very sad one in the corner looks like it might recover. And these pinky-peach ones in the front bed have been just glorious! They are not yet a PROFUSION of roses as I'd like them to be. But they are coming along very nicely, considering! (Considering what? Well…considering that I don't really know how to take care of them, nor DO I take much care of them. Although I did have Daisy dig some rose food down around their roots this spring. And I did do a little pruning, carefully.)
I wanted this fence to have a rainbow of roses along it. It doesn't have purple yet, and of course (sadly) there is no blue. (I read a mystery story about a blue rose once. It had been genetically engineered to be blue. And it was very valuable…valuable enough to kill for!) But I still look on these with great pleasure every time I'm outside! I hope they'll be even wilder and bushier next year!
Here are Goldie and Daisy with some roses at my mom's house. Hers are at their peak right now!
My hanging pots, also, are the best they've ever been…thanks to the fact that a.) Seb hooked up the drip line from above so that it will water them automatically (game changer) and b.) I finally found a tall spiky plant to go in the middle, which I haven't been able to in previous years and c.) the petunias are spilling over the sides as petunias ought!
Oh, how did this picture get here? It's from Spring; can't you just tell from the color of the sky? It seems lighter and less hot. Ha! It's a picture of Daisy and Teddy flying a kite even higher than the last time I posted about it. So high!
That was back when the daffodils were out.
Here are some darling ducklings. "But you already posted about ducklings," you are perhaps saying to yourself, with a slight tinge of annoyance. Ah! But! Those were different ducklings. These are ducklings we saw walking right outside out house! It is not the family of 10 we saw earlier, but a mama with a more reasonable seven children. They are such cute fuzzy little furballs!
I have a very sad story about ducklings. (These ducklings? I hope not, but I don't know.) I don't want to tell it, but I feel it must be told. When we got home from a trip to Southern Utah last week, and Malachi had gone off to FSY, I went in his room to get his sheets off his bed and wash them. Goldie was helping me and suddenly she said, looking into the window well, "Oh! There's something in there…a bird? I think it's dead." I came over to look, and there was a tiny fuzzy yellow-and-black ball lying there limply. As I looked closer I could see it was a duckling! And then…we saw another. And another. And two more! Five in all! Five little fluffballs lying dead in the window well! Oh it was so terrible. I called Sam downstairs to tell us what to do. He calmly picked them up and took care of them while Goldie and I looked on and cried. :( I was so sad! There are ducklings falling into things all the time in our neighborhood, of course. People are always rescuing them from storm drains and shepherding them across roads. So I just kept feeling so sad that we didn't SEE them in the widow well! We could have saved them! We could have so easily lifted them out to safety! But I think what was the worst thing was imagining their mother trying to save them. I kept saying to Sam, "What if they were peeping and peeping?" I'm sure they were, running around sadly, quacking, and their mother fluttering and not knowing what to do…maybe eventually having to just walk away…oh, I can't stand the thought of it!!
Sam tried to comfort me by telling me that lots of the ducks have been dying of avian flu. So maybe they didn't even have a mother to take care of them and would have died anyway! (That did not comfort me.) If only we had been here!!
Daisy told me that they were in duck heaven, probably swimming around and quacking at the top of their lungs. That DID comfort me. A little.
But let us not dwell on those poor departed ducklings. At least there are these sweet live ones to look at, and to live on forever in these pictures!
I liked this picture of Teddy just capably walking down the hill with a baby on his hip. The little neighbor boy was playing with his little sister, too. Sweet.
Oh the ducking story! So sad. Too sad. We brought home this tiny little kitten we found at the farm. It was just in this tree hollow mewing and looking small and forlorn and alone. And I didn’t want to take it! I doing want ANY cats! Much less THREE! (Even if we try to keep them primarily out of doors.) And I kept assuring my kids it’s mom would come take care of it. But … what if she didn’t? And this tiny, lone, helpless kitten we just … left to slowly starve. Sigh. So we took him. But even so—in this situation where no animal was dying, and hopefully one was just being saved—I STILL felt so sad and worried thinking of a mother cat possibly coming and never finding her baby. Nature is harsh and sad. We found a baby duckling once that had fallen and must have broken its neck. It kept moving its head and making little sounds but couldn’t stand up or move. It’s mother must’ve finally given up and left. My kids brought it home and it died on the way in Jesse’s cupped hands and they cried and cried. Nature is so harsh.
ReplyDeleteBut! Look how carried away I’m getting! We haven’t even gotten to all the dead chickens. Or the hamsters or Guinea pig. Or the groundhog half stretched out of his hole by the barn last week. Hahaha. Oh dear. We have a small burial ground in our backyard. And so many funerals to go with the plots!
But your poor ducklings. It might be the saddest.
But they are happy now! Of course they are! And I think it makes Heavenly Father happy, as I told my kids when they were holding and crying over that little dead duck, for any of his little creations to have anyone love or care about them or their parting.
And you are right! I wish ALL of summer could be June! Hot days and cool days still sneaking in and occasional rain. It’s just the loveliest. As are your roses! My mom and grandma BOTH loved roses so much! It’s wrong that I’ve never tried to plant any! (Though I’ve sort of given up planting ANYTHING due to the snail insanity at our place. But maybe roses and their thorns would be the one thing they wouldn’t gobble up!)
It really is TOO sad! But your duck dying in Jesse's HANDS!!!! That is way worse. I was just thinking that if we HAD saved the ducklings, and their mother had gone, and we cared for them and THEN they died, that would have really been so much worse! And I am sorry to say that Sam did not bury them. I think he just...threw them out! I didn't know what we should do! I felt almost like having a funeral would have been the right thing, so it is interesting to know that you have done so (multiple times!). But I like what you said, about Heavenly Father being happy to think of his creations being loved and cared about. That is a nice thought to go with Duck Heaven. :)
DeleteI am sorry about the ducklings. And for not giving them a more dignified funeral. But I am glad for this post and all the ways you capture the good in our little world.
ReplyDeletePoor little ducklings. I'm glad you were there to at least do SOMETHING with them.
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