Longest Day

Yesterday was the longest day of the year.  Here in Trout Creek that means the birds were announcing the coming day by 4:30 am, morning light was beginning to make details visible by 5 or 5:30 and by a bit before 8 am the sun was over the nearby trees and lighting up the bedroom curtains.  By 10:30 it was sunset and by 11 or so it was finally dark.  We're less than 150 driving miles from Canada. 

On the 4th of July (and days leading up to it) we have to wait until pretty late to be able to set off the colorful fireworks.  We shoot off the bottle rockets and other things that mainly fly in the air, make noise or both early in the evening while waiting for it to be dark enough for the "pretty stuff" like mortar shells, fountains, Catherine wheels, Roman candles and such.

Now that the weather's turned from rain every day to sunny, we'll be watering a lot so we are comfortable shooting off our cache of fireworks without setting the forest on fire.