september thoughts on strawberries in june.

summer in boise has been a blink, and also a gentle coast and hardly the internal oven that it so typically can become.

i love summer- i live for waking up and walking, mm stumbling, straight into the grass to lay under the sun and bask, like a sun meditation or summer snooze. i live for the fresh fruit. god the fresh fruit. the lake side local fruit stands, the downtown farmer’s markets, my mom’s flower gardens, my parent’s vegetable gardens, the bumblebee’s, the warm baked midnights. but idaho is a state of extremes. it gets hot and stays hot. and parts of it catch fire, and stay on fire. and i worry about every living being without refuge to air conditioning or who are trying to survive our blistering months in a coat of fur.

it seems as if this season just rolled through. The cherries are gone, they’ve cleared out the gargantuan unicorn and partyfood shaped pool floaties in front of grocery stores for multi-hued pumpkins, all speckled and striped, and i will soon be baking all things pumpkin and spice, instead of huckleberry crumbles and stone fruit galettes.

an aspect of summer that hasn’t taken a year off is a little phenomenon that happens in early june and has contributed to making it one of my most beloved months, september being it’s only close competition. september is everything magic, but.. let’s talk about that in say, february:) I mentioned this.. my june adorations, a bit on instagram back in real time, and am just now thinking it would be nice to give it some attention here.

..when i was falling in love with baking and spending nights on repeat staying up til dawn in my parent’s big open kitchen, learning how to make custards and clafoutis from my mom’s old french cookbooks, i was falling in love with june out at their place on the lake. right around dusk, around the very final days of may, the entire world will begin to smell ripe with strawberries. one evening late this spring I was walking with bob and smelled carrots. the sweetest, earthiest sun-warmed, garden carrot scent, permeating everything. and thought, well it’s not june yet. the very next night i was hit with it- strawberries, soaking the trees and the night sky. this month happens to be the birthday time of so many i adore- all you lovely, tricky geminis and cancer cusps:) it hosts the celebration of Pride- of equal love and equal rights, of basic social kindness and human respect. it welcomes in the splendor of summer with the magic that is summer solstice. and simply, it’s a collection of evenings when the air is laced in the sweetest, happiest summer berry. It is a time when you can breathe in joy.