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Ah, June!
It’s June! It’s Pride Month. June the 4th was the 100th day of the War in Ukraine. June is the month to celebrate Fathers. June used to be THE month to get married. June is the month when students of all ages gaze longingly out of the classroom windows thinking the last day of classes couldn’t happen fast enough. June is the month educators gaze at their students, who are gazing out the windows, thinking the end of the school year couldn’t happen fast enough. June is the month parents scramble to firm up summer camps placements, summer child care and family holidays, while they stare at the calendar dreaming of September. June is the month to remember D-Day and be thankful for our rights and freedom. June is a good month to remember “it’s not a race”.
Ah, June!
In a tourist community, like ours, it’s the month for local folks to go to all of their favourite places before the roads, patios, restaurants, wineries, breweries, cideries, beaches, parks and cultural attractions are overrun with visitors. Those are the visitors who, in June, were busy making summer plans to be here in July and August. LOML and I scramble around in June, getting our fix at all of those places and spaces. We do some of our best road trips in June. The strawberries are on the farm stands next to the first of the lettuces. We rush around to say “hello” and “see you later” to a host of friends who are in the service, cultural, leisure and heritage industries. It’s time for them to “make hay while the sun shines”. We realize how fortunate we are to have decided to live here 50 years ago. When we arrived in the County in 1972, we weren’t even sure if we’d stay longer than two years. Rural Ontario wasn’t foreign to us, but “our rural Ontario” was much closer to our hometown, Toronto. It was a huge surprise to be face-to-face with the reality of living within sniffing distance of a farm or, for that matter, to meet people who farmed. Our first home in the County was a rental farm home outside of Picton. Aside from going to the Royal Winter Fair, or having a neighbour who pastured his cow in our yard in the 1950s, I never saw a “farm animal” up close and in my face. The Thompson family was/is a farming family. Their dairy barn was across the road from the house we rented from them. Occasionally, a cow crossed the road to visit in the yard and leave a patty or two on the lawn. Over the years LOML and I have learned to appreciate the farm aromas, slowing down for a herd moving from one pasture to the next, or braking for a flock of runaway chickens or not flinching at the sound of a corn gun and not being upset by a slow-moving farm vehicle along the highways and byways. All of this is a reminder of being at home, now. LOML and I have spent more time living in the County than we did “not in the County”.
Ah, June. The month of June is a reminder of the huge variations that occur in Ontario’s spring weather. We start with snuggly hoodies in the morning, move along to tank tops and shorts in the afternoon and dig out our smoky bonfire jackets with a splash of DEET in the evening. June of 2022 will be the first time since 2020 we should be able to enjoy those bonfires, picnics on the beach, walks around the neighbourhood and popsicles in a parkette with our friends and our families. LOML and I look forward to spending some grand times with those people we’ve missed for over two years. We plan our June calendar as carefully as we used to plan our July and August calendar. Now, where did we leave our marshmallow sticks?
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