the owl and the olive tree

To the day of the longest night, and the promise of the sun's return.

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,"
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

          —Oliver Herford

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

          —William Shakespeare

Sumer may be icumen in, but it's Seattle, so rain is icumen in with even more gusto.

(Weather this year = extremely weird. We had the mildest January and February on record, I believe, with springlike temperatures and the fruit trees blooming well before schedule, but we're making up for it now with the coolest June on record: it hasn't even hit 75F yet this year, and usually we get that high by the first week of June at least. I believe it's an El Niño year, which, if past years are any indication, means that if it starts to rain multicolored frogs everyone will just nod sagely and say, "Ah, El Niño." Ah, well: fortunately, I do like rain. I wonder what an early bloom followed by a long, wet spring will do to the apple trees?)

Today I need to:

( to-do list: )

And, just to keep things positive:

( to-done list: )