Usually in October I say goodbye to my garden for the season. I gather my last harvests. Cut as many flowers as I can before frost blackens the plants. It’s a bittersweet time of year.

June! Oh, June. What a magical month.

My peach and cherry trees are filled with flowers. Daffodils are blooming and everywhere I look outside, spring is progressing.

In winter and early spring, it’s easy to forget how abundant and colorful my garden is during the growing season. I jog my memory by looking through photos and coming back to my blog posts.

“Autumn is the season to find contentment at home by paying attention to what we already have.”

—unknown

When I checked first thing this morning, the temperature was 31 (30 degrees lower than when I woke up yesterday).

I’m grateful for all these late-season flowers. Not just for me, but for my garden visitors, too. Bees. Butterflies. I still see hummingbirds every day, zooming from flower to flower.

This photo probably gives it away:

Some projects live in my head for a very long time before I get around to bringing them into the world. Painting a series of “barn” quilts for my house and garden is one of those projects.

When I sat down to write today’s post, I felt completely unprepared. And for the first time in a really long time, I was tempted to skip blogging this week.

Ah, June in the garden. What a beautiful month.

Today on my blog, I planned to share about the Winding Roads Art Tour, but as I was driving home on Sunday evening I realized I hadn’t taken a single photo all weekend.

I’ve been eating asparagus, rhubarb and young walking onions from the garden. I’m also harvesting chives and pinches of my basil seedlings.

It’s hard for me to believe the days were sunny and warm and my flowers were blooming only a week ago.

When I’m planning my garden for the year I always like to consider my garden from the year before.

Over the last couple of weeks, our snow was slowly melting. Two weeks of predicted snowstorms never materialized. What was left was nearly gone and then this week we were hit with snow, sleet, freezing rain and more snow. Now everything is white again.

Written on my calendar today is “Blog: Garden”.

I stand at the window and look out at my garden. Birds come and go from the feeder.

In October you never know what you’re going to get and the hooks by my back door reflect just how changeable it’s been this month.

In June when I wrote to my Joy Letter subscribers I said that June was my favorite month. Right now, though, I’m thinking August might be.