Summer Time

Summer. It's a time for slower schedules, long walks on a quiet country road, and being able to hit the snooze button more often. It means watching the acrobatic flower dance of a million honey bees and hummingbirds by day, and marveling at the rhythmic lightning bug light show by night. It means listening to the harmonic blends of the neighborhood songbirds and playing children, and also enjoying the nightly orchestra of crickets, whippoorwills, and bullfrogs. It means being thankful for a soft summer breeze to stir the hot sticky air, and occasionally getting soaked by an unexpected pop-up rain shower. It means sunburns and mosquito bites and bee stings and poison ivy, but it also means the cool soothing goodness of aloe and calamine lotion. It means cannonball splashes and swan dives, blackberry picking and tadpole catching, and watermelon eating and corn shucking. It means impromptu fishing trips at a local pond, smelling the pungent sweetness of newly-mowed grass, and enjoying a fresh-off-the-vine tomato sandwich.

It's also a time for lazing on a creaking porch swing, listening to our kids playing music and singing family favorites like Johnny Cash, The Avett Brothers, and songs written by their great-grandfather. It's a time for cherishing family and time spent together. It's a time for remembering the past, savoring the present, and daydreaming about the future.

Summer. I hope it never ends.