Fawning season is here with the young animals appearing on their spindly legs. Within just a few days after birth, the young fawns are able to dash about at amazing speeds.

Dobby lounges with the author, watching the sunrise out on the prairie. The time of the Summer Solstice is especially enjoyable due to the minimal insect action while camping.

Dobby, the author’s Australian shepherd, loves to swim, especially as temperatures rise into the summer.

Fawning season is here with the young animals appearing on their spindly legs. Within just a few days after birth, the young fawns are able to dash about at amazing speeds.

Dobby lounges with the author, watching the sunrise out on the prairie. The time of the Summer Solstice is especially enjoyable due to the minimal insect action while camping.

Dobby, the author’s Australian shepherd, loves to swim, especially as temperatures rise into the summer.

I hunker down in the drops of my bicycle handlebars in an effort to reduce wind resistance. I call the wind my “training partner” so as to not call it something more in the four-letter-word category.

On this early morning it is directly in my face at about 20 mph. While it is mid-June the temperature is a rather chilly 40 degrees.

I can easily dress for the chill since that really is a necessity for road cycling in Laramie. Our balmy weather comes and goes. I wore bike shorts a couple days earlier, but now am back to tights, thermal jacket, mittens and a hat under my helmet.

I tell my training partner to bring it on. Luckily I’m in the mood for a good workout and just pretend I’m climbing a long hill rather than fighting the wind.

Having lived in Laramie for quite some time — I moved here from Casper in 1976 — I can do the cold. Heat is a problem though, where I tend to melt if it gets above 80 degrees.

The Summer Solstice is my favorite time of year because of all the sunshine. I lament having the days now click down, a minute here and a minute there, until I am back to pedaling in the dark in the mornings with my bright headlight shining a tunnel of light out front.

For about another month, daybreak is well on as I head out, giving me much more opportunity to look around and see the world as I pedal by.

In addition, it’s a great time of year for fieldwork in my job as a wildlife biologist. Days are long with all the added light, making it easier to get my work done in a timely fashion.

My last two outings were gleefully uneventful. That means I didn’t get my truck stuck, which happened earlier this spring.

It’s also pre-bug season. In the evenings I relax in the shell of my truck, feet up and Dobby, my Australian shepherd, lounging at the end of my small bed.

The tailgate is down and the shell window is up. Dobby and I just relax and watch the sunset, listening to the blissful silence.

Next time out the bugs will turn on as the buzzing and mosquito biting starts. I’ll resort to closing up the back of the truck to keep from being a blood donor.

Next morning I repeat a version of listening to the silence as I watch the sun come up. While doing that, I enjoy a good cup of coffee (I make excellent field java). When it warms up a little, I take off with Dobby on a little mountain bike ride.

This is, I believe, his favorite part of the day.

I pedal down one side of a two-track road, and he runs alongside down the other. I actually pick my evening campsite based on having a route to mountain bike in the morning.

The mornings are cool enough to make excellent conditions for my dog with his black fur coat. He pants later in the day as temperatures rise. I promise him each day I’ll find some body of water so he can take a swim and cool off. I believe swimming is his second favorite thing to do.

Out on the prairie of my project area the flowers are in bloom. The bright Indian paintbrush seems particularly abundant this year. I’ve come across stunning bunches where the red stands out in stark contrast to the gray-green sagebrush. Yellow wallflowers, white phlox and blue bluebells add to the mix.

In wetter areas, dandelions are abundant and also especially bright this year. It’s funny how that plant is a bane to those keeping up their lawns, but is a very welcome plant out on the prairie. It indicates moisture, and that’s a good thing.

Meadowlarks, suitably the Wyoming state bird, trill and bluebirds flutter past from time to time. Their bright blue always makes me smile. They are truly the bluebirds of happiness.

It also is fawning time. The first pronghorn fawns to appear on their skinny, rickety legs always make me smile. When just a few days old they can already run like the wind.

The Summer Solstice is a time of birth, renewal and beauty — before the summer heat and swarms of annoying mosquitos and flies arrive.

It is truly my favorite time of the year.

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