June Country Days on the 2nd of the Month

June - my favourite month of the year, meteorologically the start of summer (or  wait to the 21st for the astronomical start)

It is thought that June is named after the goddess Juno or possibly from Iuniores which was the lower level of the legislature in the constitution of ancient Rome.

Calm weather in June, sets the farmer in tune

 The weather pattern for June often alternates between spells of stormy weather and shorter periods of dry calm. The farmers prefer calm and warm with night-time dew to speed up crop growth and statistically June is England's sunniest month.

 

Summer Moon Walk . An Illustration by Angela Harding from her  book 'A Year Unfolding'

Other people in the past have also enjoyed June and written poems

 

Christina Rossetti said in her poem                    Summer

If the year would stand

Still at June for ever,

With no further growth on land

Nor further flow of river.

If all nights were shortest nights

And longest days were all seven,

This might be a merrier world

To my mind to live in.

JUNE 

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine

  The Month of Marriages!  All pleasant sights

And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,

  The foliage of the valleys and the heights.

Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;

  The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;

I am the mother of all dear delights;

  I am the fairest daughter of the year.

From 'The Poets Calendar' By Longfellow 

And another written for children by Irene F Pawsey

Month of leaves,
Month of roses;
Gardens full
Of dainty posies;
Skies of blue,
Hedgerows gay,
Meadows sweet
With the new mown hay.

Flowery banks,
A-drone with bees,
Dreaming cattle
Under trees:
Song-birds pipe
A merry tune—
This is summer,
This is June.

And way, way back in 1557 Thomas Tusser said in his Five hundred points of good husbandry

In June get thy wedehoke, they knife and thy glove,

And wede out such wede as the corn doth not love;

Slack no time weding, for darth nor for cheape;

Thy corn shall reward it, or ever thou reap.

I think this means - keep weeding that garden!

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