The sight of the first pale flowers starring the copses; an anemone held up against the blue sky with the sun shining through it towards you; the first fall of snow in the autumn, the first thaw of snow in the spring; the blustering, busy winds blowing the winter away and scurrying the dead, untidy leaves into the corners; the hot smell of pines – just like blackberries – when the sun is on them; the first February evening that is fine enough to show how the days are lengthening, with its pale yellow strip of sky behind the black trees whose branches are pearled with raindrops; the swift pang of realization that the winter is gone and the spring is coming; the smell of the young larches a few weeks later; the bunch of cowslips that you kiss and kiss again because it is so perfect, because it is so divinely sweet, because of all the kisses in the world there is none other so exquisite – who that has felt the joy of these things would exchange them, even if in return he were to gain the whole world, with all its chimney-pots, and bricks, and dust, and dreariness?  And we know that the gain of a world never yet made up for the loss of a soul.

It’s official!  Winter and spring are behind us, Midsummer was this weekend, and we’re into my favorite half of the year.  I find things to enjoy in every season, but summer and fall have my heart.  And I love the above words by Elizabeth von Arnim, whose German garden hosted so many turnings of the earth and changings of the seasons, with all the joys and wonders that follow.

Happy summer!