Junebugs

June is for June bugs ... fireflies .... lightning bugs. We didn't have them growing up. I always think they're magical and I miss them when they go.

June is for the first garden harvests. Lettuce and spinach and radishes. Potatoes sprouting through the mound. Tomato vines reaching for the sky, first yellow blooms and tiny green fruit appearing.

June is thick grass, still green, not yet drying in the summer heat.

The grill being used in earnest: hamburgers and hot dogs and fresh ears of corn on the cob and let's try some marinated chicken this year or maybe a kebab.

The first hot days, but not yet steamy, thunderstorms beginning, but cooler days not completely gone.

The ice cream man, coming by in the waning afternoon, just when you want him. It's 4:30, late enough to be hungry, early enough that mom relents, hoping it won't spoil your appetite for dinner.

The promise of summer adventures, just around the corner. The last days of school. Swimming and the beach and road trips, no longer months away, but weeks.

Light late into the evening, hard to believe it's 8:30 and just dusk. The solstice is coming, the most bittersweet day of the year; summer's officially here just as the daylight hours start dying again, shrinking back one day at a time.

June is the year halfway gone, and how did that happen? It's always a surprise.

And the grey days of winter seem to drag on forever, but June speeds by before you can grab hold of it, melting on your tongue. Winking out like a firefly's flash.

[Photo credit: Nite Willow, Photobucket]