The Summer Season Arrives

I've been making a special effort to watch for significant chanages in the seasons this year.  Seasonal change is continuous, and is especially obvious in a garden, but changes also tend to occur in bunches sometimes.  This is what I'd say happened about two weeks ago, when summer really arrived.

The most obvious change was that the leaves were finally fully out.  The very widespread white ash are the last tree to leaf out here, still looking like the leaves are only half out at the end of May.  But by early June, the leaves were definitely out.  This is a tulip tree we planted in our yard, very far north for this species in Ontario, but so far it has survived.

The other most obvious change is that the last of the crops are in and starting to grow.  Corn, as in this field, and soybeans  are the two most frost sensitive crops, and often don't get in and emerge til early June.  By now, seeding was pretty well complete.

And the first hay was cut too.  I haven't found any big round bales to photograph yet, but it's been rainy and cold for a week too.  This hay was cut the first week of June.  Dairy farmers are often the earliest to cut their hay, wanting a high protein content.

When you look a little closer, you notice other things too.  In our case, the daisies start blooming.  Daisies pop up anyplace they can get started, and usually I let them bloom if they're in the garden.  But they also grow all over our meadow, and suddenly the green grass is decorated with little white flowers.

There are even more yellow flowers than white in the meadow, and they're also just starting to bloom.  These are Hawkweed, or King Devil, but the yellow Buttercups and Goat's Beard are also now in bloom.

Finally, the lilacs started blooming.  They have bloomed quite late here this year, but they are well along now.  So it seems to me like quite a pattern of changes in early June that put together mark the end of the spring season, and the arrival of summer.  With all the leaves out around here, the landscape feels a lot more closed in.