"June is bursting ----"

From: Caroline
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 6:05 AM
Subject: "June is bursting ----"

Just when I thought May was the most beautiful month June comes along to surprise me and send me into “attacks of joy”. The pesky Rosa Multiflora, which is such a nuisance eleven and a half months of the year, is now in full bloom, cascading over walls and low trees and perfuming the air so that you think you have been transported to some magic island. As if that weren’t enough the tops of the native arrow-wood are white with blossoms, like huge bouquets scattered through the hedges. My favorite catbirds are still singing different snatches of song while defending their territories and it won’t be until next month that they quiet down and start to sound like some poor crazy person chuckling and laughing in the dense undergrowth. Right now they are fearless and will come within several feet of my chair if I’m sitting on the deck. They love the squares of suet mixed with seeds that I get at the feed store as well as oranges and grapes and old strawberries.

I am hoping for thunderstorms today to break this incredible streak of heat and humidity. All my East Coast friends know we went from cold and massive amounts of rain into full summer. So what with my knee and the rain and the cold my gardens are in a sorry, weedy state but that will change.

The summer is packed with visits from people I really like to be with plus goings on about town, which will be fun. Tomorrow I am going with my friend Joey, just turned six, to watch and hear Bill Hartley. Joey is such an exuberant, smarty pants little boy that the real fun for me will be to watch him. He’s my surrogate grand child and reminds me of how much I have missed by not being closer to my real ones.

Love to all – and to those who are baking in the heat, I hope you have paid your electric bills and that the air conditioners are working. Caroline/Mom/Ooma