Summer comes to us in June. It brings stampeding stratocumulus clouds and awakens wild flowers in our fields, including pea-podded lupins, blue- and yellow-flagged irises, and millions of daisies and buttercups.
With the arrival of full-leaf canopies, our woods become delightfully dappled in June, but they can begin to dry out. This year, the mossy-banked wood’s streams dwindled early, making us worry about a possible serious drought by August.
June is when ferns in the darker, boggier parts of the woods catch the light as if to illuminate the bashful lady’s slipper and jack-in-the pulpit plants hiding there.
The runoff from the woods’ streams often leads to ponds where native fragrant water lily plants have been sleeping within the murky bottoms. Their pads begin to rise to the surface in late May and early June and, by the end of June, they have formed galaxies around their bursting, white flowers.
Around the edges of the ponds, there often are sprays of graceful arrow arum with some of their leaves drooping into the water as if pointing out, with a delicate finger, the rising new lily pads. These pond edges actually are a series of small kingdoms in which green frogs reign and bellow warnings to potential intruders.
June is when many of our feathered summer residents give birth and start to teach their eager nestlings how to survive in the wild. Female ospreys occupy the penthouse suites and spread their wings to shade their young from the sun, while calling for their mates to bring the family food. Their mates obey and bring fish to feed the family.
In the lower regions, male red-winged blackbirds screech at any intruder that comes near their nestlings hidden among the cattail roots; the sparrow-like females often leave their nest to encourage their mates’ belligerence. Tree swallows take over bluebird housing, flying in with gobs of insects to feed their young and flying out with gobs of that food after it had been digested. Mother mallards don’t have to teach their ducklings how to swim, but they do have to teach them where to swim when they are vulnerable.
On the waterfront, June is when the schooners and other sailing coastal cruisers come to our Great Cove to moor overnight and to provide their passengers with the opportunity to tour the WoodenBoat School here. They arrived and departed in this June’s rain and shine: the red-trimmed/gray-hulled Lewis R. French; the red-sailed/green-hulled Angelique; the white-trimmed/gray-hulled Mary Day, and the wood-trimmed/white-hulled Ladona.
On the working waterfront, June is when most of our fishermen (male and female) begin the summer coastal water lobster season at our Naskeag Harbor. It’s when they load their traps, lines, and buoys onto their vessels to take them out and set them in their favorite spots.
There also is an educational waterfront in Great Cove, where the WoodenBoat School’s sailing classes begin in June. Sometimes, there was no wind worthy of raising a sail, a time for actual and metaphysical reflection.
At other times, it was cold. windy, and drizzly for those attending open-air classes and learning the ins and outs of a 12 1/2-foot sailboat or learning how to row and sail a 28-foot double-ended open boat in bad weather.
And, often, it was a glorious time when the new sailors captured and held the harmony that plays between wind and water on a sunny day.
Finally, June also has its glorious times in the gardens. Among many moments, it’s when lilacs reach their peak density and fragrance before withering poignantly; when peonies are opening to their fullest lushness; when cultivated day lilies begin their daily arrivals and departures; when the tight buds of rhododendrons explode into flowers, and when poppies behave outrageously.
(All images shown above were taken in Brooklin, Maine, dirung June 2022.)