It has been a few days since the Solstice, and most of them rainy, just like today, sadly I missed the Firefly festival because of the rain. On the rare dry evening I have taken the time to watch for fireflies, usually just at dusk, lightening bugs or fireflys are a part of Solstice to me. They put on a spectacular ballet , well yes I know it is really their mating dance, but they don't seem to mind if we watch. And no I don't think they should be caught in jars, I have been reading about the decline in the number of fireflys, or lightening bugs as we called them when I was a kid, and probably did catch my share of them in jars. 
This handsome fellow or gal is a firefly, they are even beautiful during the day light hours, just thought you might be wondering how they looked. Watching lightening bugs is magical, almost more now than it was a-way back then, when one sat on the front porch covered up to try and avoid mosquito bites and watched them sparkle as they flew over the hay fields and pasture. 
And then there is Stonehenge, which I muse about a lot, and am sure was some sort of agrarian calendar, and probably a whole lot more. The big difference between the ancients who gathered there and the moderns who gather, besides the moderns leave more garbage, is that the ancients knew the purpose and the origins of Stonehendge, perhaps if they had left more clues{garbage} behind we would know more about why and how it was built. And thinking of how long it must have taken to nail down the exact day, exact time of the Solstices, decades, may-be centuries is staggering. The very idea that this grand henge was built to be a sort of musical amplifier is a very exciting thought also. I can only wonder, and wish that Dr Who would pop by and offer me a ride back in time, yes I would go in an instant.
Apparently crop circles appear more frequently at the time of the Solstice, and that is all I have to say on the subject, except to express my admiration for the clever folk who have been constructing them for centuries. My understanding is that these both appeared in time for this 
year's Solstice, but I am not sure if it was near the Stone circle at Avebury, or Stonehenge. I fancy that somewhere, someone or several someones know a lot more than they are telling, and what they know would make a far better story than anything the general public might think up.
And now the days grow growing shorted, it seems odd and wonderful to be able to watch a sunset at nearly bedtime, but I prefer it to the chill winter sunsets that come before suppertime. Right now I don't notice the days getting shorter, the rising sun wakes me well before 6AM, and the firefly ballet doesn't start until 9PM. Summer is an expansive season, when the whole world bursts to life right before our very eyes, The Solstice also makes me think of fresh fruit, cherries, strawberries and peaches, though these peaches aren't grown here, one of my favorite memories from childhood was going to a place just outside of town where large panel trucks were parked, loaded with peaches, and much less interesting crops like potatoes and green beans sometime. People flocked there to buy fruits and vegetable to can, and I especially liked the people who sold those peaches. But I digress, and I do that a lot, because what I wanted to say was that as Summer progresses the length of daylight on which life depends grows shorter.
Summer Solstice marks the exact point in the year when the daylight begins to grow shorter, as the countryside around us abounds with life.
