I love summer by the same measure that I hate winter. Up here in Central Ontario, carpe diem is the name of the game, since our summer is an abridged version of what most people consider a season. To give some perspective, the ice was still on the lake at the beginning of May, and there were patches of snow lingering in the forest. The apple blossom burst forth just a month ago, and already the tree is laden with golf-ball sized fruit. Six weeks from now, in mid-August, we will begin to see the tips of branches taking on their autumn colour.

We have six months of monochrome greys, browns and whites, when the trees are bare, the sky is grey, and snow blankets the ground. But the other six months are a rhapsody of colour, as if to counterbalance the deadness and darkness of the long winter. From spring's baby greens and sprays of blossoms to the sapphire sparkle of the summer lake, the flowers are like fireworks against a palette of lush green foliage. Then autumn brings its own magnificent, fiery coda of oranges, golds and rusts.
 

The flora and fauna around here have a keen sense of this frenetic rhythm, and they impress not only with their hardiness but their incredible zeal about making the most of every drop of sunshine. Baby songbirds have begun to fledge; geese and ducks and loons are parading their gawky youngsters on the lakes and rivers, and fawns are reaching shoulder height on their does. Butterflies and bees are harvesting nectar and pollen. Blackflies have given way to mosquitoes, and now to deer flies (our little corner of the world is close to edenic, but not perfect).

Snowdrops and tiny purple squill came in April, followed by crocus, daffodils and tulips, then spring blossoms on the trees, plus bleeding hearts, alliums, trilliums and forget-me-nots; irises and poppies and lupines in June; oxeyes and hawkweed and tickseed, and soon will come the asters and sunflowers, precursors of autumn.

It all happens at a rather dizzying rate; we've already passed solstice, and the darkness is closing in at either end of the day. But I don't want to think about that just now. I want to live in the moment, just as nature is doing all around me.