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Litha - Summer Solstice 2021
As is tradition, I get up to watch sunrise on the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice.
Oddly, for a celestial event that depends upon a known position of the sun relative to the Earth, looking on the internet gives all sorts of different times of when the Solstice actually is. Different enough that there is some disagreement as to whether it is today or tomorrow!
Canton Becker, in his Moon and Astronomical events calendar has noted it as being today at half five in the afternoon my time (or something like 8am Mountain Time (his timezone)).
The forecast was for overcast and light rain, so while there was a cloud that obscured the sun, it was possible to see the sun rising underneath the cloud.
Enjoy eleven minutes of ambience. This is what it sounds like most mornings.
The girl with Tourettes
I was absentmindedly watching random stuff on YouTube. One of the things that I watched was a girl signing "Dance Monkey" in British Sign Language, and looking like she was really enjoying things. So I tapped on her username, This Trippy Hippie and discovered a young woman called Evie Meg who has Tourettes.
While this could easily be awkward with a multitude of tics and a tendency to shout out pervy things (I had to look up one of the things she said 😂), her personality is amazing and she has such a great outlook on life. I had not planned to spend three and a half hours watching Evie smiling through the frustrations (look at it this way, flying eggs is one step up on what the chickens can manage!). In fact the only time she looked at all disturbed was during the pancake video when she just sort of faded out for a few moments (I think she called it an absent seizure?).
The strangest thing about Evie is that with the sheer strength of her personality, all her various mannerisms sort of fade away after a few minutes until what remains is this awesome girl you wished you knew...
At half five, the time of the Solstice, I went and took some photos. Sadly there wasn't much in the way of sun. It had been raining during the late morning, and so far no more thunderstorms, but...
Icelandic Poppy and Dianthus.
Sweet Pea.
Gaillardia aristata (great blanket flower). Great job, camera, on focusing on the solar panel and not the really obvious flower!
Pansy.
Mom's favourite scented rose (type unknown).
Wild Foxglove.
The weird flowers (?) of the Euphorbia lathyris.
The rose (type unknown) that I saved from certain death on a supermarket aisle.
The rose (Ghislaine de Feligonde) that mom planted in 1992 when she bought the house.
And a final picture for David Pilling. He mentioned on YouTube that I should build my own megalith to sort out what day the Solstice is.
As it happens, mom built a minilith on the bridge across the stream. I need to go and whack weeds back there. But here's a photo.
I should add - I came back from work one day and it was there. I don't know where she got the rocks, or how she managed to heave them. Mom...was like that.
Mom's Minilith.
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John, 20th June 2021, 19:21
If you snip off the dead roseheads it encourages further flowering. Like with other plants, unless you want the seeds it's wasted energy and effort for the plant which thinks (!) its job of procreation is done!
Called "dead-heading".
David Pilling, 21st June 2021, 17:27
Nice Icelandic poppies - a Euphorbia like that is commonly known as a "mole tree" because when planted it is supposed to discourage moles. Possibly the connection is that the milk sap is unpleasant - you're supposed to wear gloves when gardening around it.
They celebrated solstice today at the big henge - in a ceremony going back 3000 years it was closed to visitors due safety concerns. They also pulled the livestream for the same reason.
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