Mead Moon

It's June and masses of roses appear suddenly, as if in a fairy tale. Sunflowers and corn grow quickly in the cool evening air. Suddenly it's too hot for comfort during the day and I worry about bringing fish home from the store in case it spoils while I wait for my son in the playground. Suddenly it's too hot to plant those cool weather greens and I'm out in the back yard with my watering can every evening. Bees of all shapes and sizes are foraging through palettes of pollen--the dark black mascara of poppies, the rusty hue of lupin dust to the light bright spores from California lilacs. A tiny bee I cannot name lands on my beige shorts. She is up to her armpits in neon yellow pollen. A honey bee carries a dead worker from inside the hive up over the rocks and well away from the front of the hive while the queen lays over 1, 500 eggs a day. The new comb begins to fill with light-colored honey.

June sits easily in our bones. It's the restless days of school almost over and the fat strawberry horizon of summer sunsets. It's piano recitals and dusty sports days. June berries, green corn, lazy days of cold suppers and a glass of mead in the back yard. Wish you were here. Happy birthday sis!










Algonquin: When they Hill Indian Corn, Honey Moon, Hot Moon, Strawberry Moon, Rose Moon
Abernaki: Hoer moon
Choctaw: Windy Moon
Omaha: Buffalo moon
Assiniboine: Full Leaf Moon
Taos: Corn Tassel Moon
Northern Arapaho: When the hot weather begins
Cree: The month leaves come out
Kalapuya: Camas Ripe
Lakota: Moon when the June berries are good.
Tlingit: Birth moon
Sioux: Green grass Moon
Mohawk: Ripening Moon
Potawatomi: Turtle Moon
Lakota: Making Fat Moon
Wishram: Fish Spoils Moon
Anishnaabe: Strawberry Moon:
Cherokee: Green Corn Moon, Flower Moon
Full Janic: Mead Moon
Chinese: Lotus Moon
Celtic: Horses’ Moon

Swimming in Pollen

The bees are really coming out in force now. This is one of my favorite times of the year in Vancouver because so many things are blooming and it's not so bloomin' hot. This little visitor was swimming in the pollen of this Nootka rose, circling over and over again as if she didn't want to miss bathing in every grain of pollen. What a sensualist.

I like this little guy too, peeking over the edge of a ragged rose blossom.

Just a week ago the twinberries were just flowers, but now they also bear fruit. They are one of the unusual plants that fruits and flowers at the same time. Hummingbirds love this plant.

The bee-herding fence describes circles of bee dances.

Baby fruit ripening in the sun.

The bee garden is surrounded by lush green growth and a the living fence really anchors it into the site.

A spiral of buckwheat sprouts around three white sunflowers. The clover is starting to sprout too. I didn't water today because rain is in the immediate forecast. We need some moisture now.


Edelweiss? In any case, I'm happy to greet you.

The lupins are blooming, which means great bumble bee watching.

This little one visits our bee garden.

A woman does tai chi on the top of the hill. Sunflowers will soon be turning their heads to the morning sun.

A volunteer cornflower.

A pale yellow iris bows and yawns in the breeze.

My Best Guess

I like to keep track of what is blooming in the neighborhood of the MOP, but this does challenge my plant identification skills. I will just give my best guess here until one of you experts out there helps me out. This looks like a pink chestnut blossom.

The tree is overlooking North China Creek Park facing Burnaby Mountain.

The leaves have got me sunk on this one.

Columbines, poppies and "true" geraniums.

Buckets of rosemary blooms--one of the few plants that survived the winter here.


TWF's: Tiny white flowers with a silvery foliage. Any help identifying these would be greatly appreciated. Over and out.

Blossom Moon

May Moon Names

Eastern Cherokee moon: Planting Moon
(the strict translation is "the putting it in a hole moon")

Abenaki: Field Maker Moon

Algonquin: When Women Weed Corn

Winnibego: Hoeing Corn Moon

Anishnaabe (Chippewa, Ojibwe): Blossom Moon

Apache: Season When the Leaves are Green

Northern Arapaho: When the Ponies Shed their Shaggy Hair

Assiniboine: Idle Moon

Hopi: Month of Waiting

Cree: Frog Month

Kalapuya: Camas Blooming Time

Haidi: Food-Gathering Moon

Creek: Mulberry Moon

Potawatomi and Shawnee: Strawberry Moon

Kiowa: Geese go North

Osage: Moon when the Little Flowers Die

The moon names are thanks to americanindian.net.

The full moon fell on Mother's Day this year, which seems particularly apt as mothers all over Vancouver surely dug their hands in the soil this past weekend. The Native American names for the full moon in May cover the range of agricultural and gatherer activities from planting, weeding, and hoeing to waiting and harvesting. The camas are strawberries are blooming here in the north and further south the strawberries and mulberries are ready to eat.

What is blossoming in Vancouver? Today I was heartened to see the queen bumble bees' first children foraging in these rhododendrons in the rain. My neighbour's dogwood blossoms were very interesting to the mason bees yesterday. My lilacs, azaleas, bleeding hearts, and forget-me-nots are blooming. In fact our whole block is heady with the muggy scent of lilac oils and cherry blossoms. The little flowers of the few rosemary plants that survived are blooming, along with lion's bane, anemones, tulips, and scads of fruit trees. There's a lot of pollen and nectar out there now and I fee a huge sense of relief for those foraging bees. Now we need some warm, sunny days for them to get out and about.

Meanwhile, somewhere in North America the ponies are shedding their hair and the geese are heading north. Somewhere the "little flowers" are dying and the new frogs are finding their legs. I am planting, weeding, worrying, trying to believe that my thumb is green and my magic beans will grow. Mothers and gardens: their histories are intertwined as bean vines and sunflower stalks. I have to trust that the sunflowers I planted will take root, tap the fresh May rain out of the rich soil and reach up to the light. The same goes for our son, metaphorically speaking. He's going through a growth spurt right now too.

I think it will be a good year for beespeaking. Now if only I could learn to talk to slugs. I'd send them over to the vacant lot down the street!