This weekend was jam-packed with all things summer and good. On Friday night, to celebrate summer and the longest day of the year, Clif and I had pizza on the grill. We ate late, after coming back from a bike ride, and our citronella torches mostly kept the biting bugs away. As we ate our pizza on the patio and marveled at how the sky was still blue even at 9:00 p.m., we gave thanks to warm weather and summer, so short and sweet in Maine.

On Saturday, we went to our friend Diane’s house for a potluck and a recycled gift exchange. Each guest brought a dish to share as well as something from their home that they no longer wanted. The gifts ranged from the silly—patio lights in the shape of cows—to the seriously cool—a carved hummingbird bracket. The food was good, the company was even better, and for visual delight, Diane’s yard was gloriously abloom with bachelor buttons, and with just a little imagination, I could pretend I was in England.

And guess who was lucky enough to get the carved humming bird bracket? We plan to buy, appropriately enough, a humming bird feeder to hang on the little hook in the front.

Finally, on Friday, we had our friends Paul and Judy over for Clif’s legendary grilled bread and for summer salads—orzo and spinach, one of my favorites, and for salad niçoise, sort of, from a Mark Bittman recipe. Paul and Judy told us all about their trip to Italy, where they walked and ate and looked at ruins and art and walk and ate some more. (With all that walking, they didn’t gain any weight.)

Summer certainly has begun with a gallop, and it promises to be that way into August. Never mind! I will squeeze as much biking and patio and outside time as I possibly can out of this too-short season.