Midsummer in the Village

This past weekend was marked by the longest day of the year; midsummer. Now the sun doesn't set on our village until after ten at night and it begins rising just before four in the morning. Fishermen are camping by our lake and the village store is filling again with local produce and neighbors have put out honesty boxes to sell their eggs and flowers and handmade wooden chitting trays. Many of our woodland wildflowers are fading; the garlic and wild parsley giving way to daisies and buttercups in the fields, while elderflowers bloom in the hedge in place of hawthorn. Our own humble garden grows day by day with nasturtium leaves as big as your hand hiding shy little flowers of orange and yellow and red in their shade. On sunny days the grassy meadows near our house are filled ringlet, speckled wood, and meadow brown butterflies and the air is filled with the scent of elderflowers and the sound of swooping swifts and chattering sparrows.
Summer is quiet, but not always golden as storms chase across the skies. In the evenings I sit on the porch with Solomon by my side, watching rain or listening to distant thunder. On quieter nights I have a book in hat and try to spy a few bats swooping in the fading twilight against the silhouette of the nearby church ruins. Solomon lingers mostly by my side, leaving occasionally for a sniff around the gates or a low, suspicious bark into the dark woods just beyond our door. Some nights you can see little eyes glinting back at in the darkness. Foxes or badgers or even the occasional hedgehog. You can hear them yipping in the distance, but aside from those faint noises and the rustle of trees against one another in the night, the village is still and quiet. The only light a few lanterns along the main street and our little golden porch light casting a glow off the front steps.