By Scott Shephard

Technically, the first day of summer is June 21st, but I'd like to think that summer in the upper midwest starts earlier than that. It would be nice to have consistently warm weather in late may, though that's not realistic.

But when I see the iris bloom, I know that good weather is sure to come and stay.

These iris, incidentally, were growing in the front yard of a house on Kent and Selby in St. Paul. My mission the morning I took this photo was to get breakfast rolls for the family. But I was sidetracked by these beautiful flowers in a picturep-perfect front yard.

Canon 5DIII 1/100s f/6.3 ISO400 100mm