Hello dear readers,

I write to you from my office, a glass of iced tea¹ half-drunk in front of me. It’s not yet ten in the morning and already the house is sticky-hot in a way that makes me wish, not for the first time, that I lived near a mountain lake.

I fully intended to write this post last week, but I was so excited about being vague and cryptic that it completely slipped my mind. Technically I am writing this on the summer solstice, but by the time you read this, the days will already be getting incrementally shorter and Litha will have passed. Either way, here’s how the weekend went.

Friday night was rather quiet, and was a much-needed rest after a busy week. I did water the back garden, which has bloomed into something of a meadow in the last two months, and which continues to surprise me each day². And the black hollyhocks, planted last year in the front garden, have grown to over ten feet tall.

Saturday was busy but entirely wonderful, as much of it was spent at the farm. When I arrived, grandpa had already watered the pumpkins, squash, and gourds in the back field, so my time was spent transplanting the rogue row of pumpkins³ and weeding the corn bed. I also walked through the ravine, which grows wilder as grandpa grows older. I loved the maintained paths, but I love the overgrown ones more⁴.

Back at home, I watered the garden again and pulled some weeds from the garlic bed. The blueberries have just begun to ripen, so I ate a few of those sitting on the low stone wall while watching a hummingbird hover near the delphinium.

Today—on the solstice proper—I will head back to the farm for more weeding, more watering. I’d like to say hello to the giant toad that lives in the pond, too, who we have named Big Greg⁵, and drink coffee with the grandparents. Later on, we will go to my dad’s house for a barbeque, for which I’ve made a corn salad and will brew more iced tea.

Tonight, once we’re home and the house is quiet, I will sit on the front porch and watch the sun set on the longest day of the year. I always do love to watch the sun rise and set, but it feels particularly special on the solstices, when the days are at their longest and shortest, respectively.

That’s all from me today. I hope you’re well, and that the solstice was full of family and food for you, too.

—Catherine

FOOTNOTES

¹ This week’s iced tea is a darjeeling chardonnay that has been wasting away in my cupboards for some time. I have far too much black tea right now, and so I’ve been icing different types intermittently in hopes of using them up.

² Today my first jellybean poppy opened! Which is basically a california poppy, but it’s a beautiful creamy off-white. There are supposed to be pink ones, too, so I will wait impatiently for those.

³ There were some rotten seeds grandpa threw down in a row, not expecting anything. And now most of them have come up, so they’re getting moved around so they have a chance at life.

⁴ Just last month, one section of the path was blanketed in silver nettle, an invasive plant that my other grandma gifted this one. That grandma hilariously had a history of (unknowingly) giving invasive plants, which I wrote about and then never posted on substack, because I began to despise it. I think I will publish that essay here in the near future, though.

⁵ There are usually dozens of toads in the pond, but this year we have only seen two. The monstrous Big Greg, about four times the size of the regular toads, and then one smaller one, aptly named Little Greg.

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