While reading Pema Chödrön’s Another Kind of Freedom this morning, I smiled when I read, “Don’t believe everything you think.” What a good way to make light of the thoughts that pop in and out of our mind.

It’s the longest day of the year. The chicks are growing up fast. On their way to independence. Every year I have hens that sit on the same nest and hatch a brood together.

They end up co-parenting their shared broods. The chicks don’t care if they have one mother, two mothers, or three.

The chicks bond with both hens and go back and forth between them.

Summer Solstice is a mix of happiness and sadness for me. Summer feels like it is just getting started, but it’s all downhill from here, shortening days, the knowing that darkness is approaching.

It’s prime bee season. I think it would be lovely to be a bee. To live your life in blossoms, being able to plunge into them, bury your whole head into the flower to find its nectar. Though I suppose a bee allergic to pollen wouldn’t enjoy the experience. Though I doubt there are any such bees.

In any case, a bee can’t sneeze. They don’t breathe through a nose. They breathe through tiny openings called spiracles along the sides of their bodies.

Happy Summer Solstice day for those in the Northern Hemisphere. And for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, the days will be getting longer now.

Five or six winters ago, a long cold spell killed our large California Lilac. In the summer bees by the thousands used to buzz around the bush, feasting on the flowers which bloomed all summer long.

We waited two years in vain for any growth to appear on the bare stems. It was a sad day when we cut down the dead bush. Fearing another deep freeze, we didn’t replace it.

Imagine my surprise when this spring I saw a sprig of the California Lilac poke out of the ground. It’s now in bloom, a little bush with a lot of hope. What were the roots doing all these years? Lying dormant? Feeling how cold it got each winter before they were assured that such deadly winters were a thing of the past?

In a few more years, it should be of a good size. Hopefully it will regain the stature it once had. And be a gathering spot for thousands of bees again.

On a warm, sunny day like today, the shade of a hanging flower pot makes a great place for a rooster to chill.