Dreaming vs. reality

June 21 is the official first day of summer. From now until early winter, daylight hours get incrementally shorter until the winter solstice on Dec. 21, when they began to stretch out again toward the promise of another summer.

This is the time of year when the dreams of summer I had back in those dark, cold days of January do not match up with the reality of the current situation. The January version involved images of sitting on the patio on warm summer evenings, sipping a drink and watching the hummingbirds while the dogs and cats frolic on the lawn.

I have all those ingredients but I’ve yet to assemble them into anything resembling the above scenario.

We’ve had plenty of warm summer evenings but they’ve come complete with bugs. I’m not against bugs in general, only the ones that bite. Those nasty little gnats have been a plague. Every year, regular as clockwork, one of the things bites me on the eyelid and I spend a painful week looking like someone punched me. So far, I’ve avoided gnat bites to the face although one of them got me on the ear. It turned bright red and itched for days.

Outdoor activities are dictated by wind speed and direction. When you live on top of a hill, wind is usually a constant (if not annoying) companion. Calm summer evenings sound wonderful until you actually get one and the bugs from Hell descend in a swarming cloud around your head.

I carefully planted seeds in a flower bed on one mildly windy spring evening and when they came up, it was obvious Mother Nature had replanted them for me. Some sprouted where I intended the seed to fall, others not so much.

The hummingbirds are finally here, which makes me happy. I put the feeder out starting in early May and cleaned and refilled it dutifully without seeing a single bird until June 1. They say the little birds often return to the same sites every year. If that’s true, then my hummingbirds are of the fashionably late variety. To date, I’ve seen one male and one female ruby throated bird at my feeder. Are they a pair? If so, they show no sign of enjoying date night together, each visiting the feeder at different times.

In the three weeks they’ve been here, they’ve grown from being skittishly shy to acting like they own the backyard and everything in it. Initially, the slightest hint of motion would send them zooming away. Now they buzz past me with the calculated skill of a fighter pilot lining up for a carrier landing. It’s clear I am in their way, not the other way around.

My (fat and lazy) cats ignore them. My sensible older Aussie ignores them. My nut-ball young Aussie has taken to chasing them around the yard.

The cats, dogs, birds, summer sunsets and an adult beverage or two will come together eventually to create those memories that will carry me through the -20 nights this winter. By then I will have accidentally-on-purpose forgotten about the bugs, evenings spent cleaning up storm debris, groaning while imagining the electric bill as the AC grinds away late into the night and the grass goes brown and sharp with drought.

Blessed summer solstice.

Comments: Melinda.Wichmann@southeastiowaunion.com