Today is the summer solstice, the turning point in the celestial year when the sun in the Northern Hemisphere is at its greatest distance from the equator. The days will in fact grow shorter from this point on, but that is a thought for another day.

Appropriately, this weekend featured picture-perfect summer days — sunny and clear with canopies of green leaves and roses in bloom and the water in Vineyard Sound so blue it must have been painted from the sky.