All Day

We're just about seven days from what many think of as the 'longest day of the year.'

Of course the summer solstice is not the longest day of the year, it's 24 hours just like every other day in the year.

The sunshine is making it seem like a longer day though, isn't it?

From my bed on a clear day the first light starts painting a pinkish hue on the horizon not too long after 4 a.m.

The last bit of daylight doesn't ebb completely below the western horizon until well after 9 p.m.

Yes, that's a lot of daylight.

I can't imagine having 24 hours of daytime like our friends further north enjoy through a few months of summer, but if I had to make it through 24 hours of darkness for a long period of time - those endless days of summer might be just the ticket.

This first full summer back in Wisconsin is an opportunity to see the sun early and late - watching it rush across the sky with an urgency commending us to get out and take advantage of the many daylight hours while we can easily get outside.  Wrapped inside each sun-filled day is a reminder that in not many months - daylight will be reduced, cloud cover will increase, temps will drop, and snow will fall.

I missed this time of the great sun making it's majestic trip across the heavens while living in Indiana.  Now wait, not trying to say the sun didn't shine, because it did.  The problem was living on the western edge of the Eastern Time Zone where the sun was more accustomed to a later wake-up call.

Throw in a few more degrees of latitude and that adds some sun time too.  I'll never forget a visit to Panama years ago in the late spring and how astonishing it was that the sun was in the air only 12 hours a day.

These long days remind me of summer vacation when Mom would let me stay up 'until dark.'  (The definition of dark varies a great deal when you are 11 years old.)  That bonus time was spent throwing the ball around or riding bikes and waiting for dusk and the little lights that soon flitted just above the grass.

Those little lights, some of them anyway, would soon join me - in a glass jar with holes punched in the top sitting next to my bed providing a little more light before sleep arrived.

Enjoy today... enjoy ALL day!