“The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods.”
The breeze this morning was cooling, but it is disappearing. The clouds periodically give way to the sun. The 74° we have now will soon be 80°, the lowest temperature for the next three days. I feel like a hermit, a cool, comfortable hermit but a hermit nonetheless. A friend is coming late this afternoon for cocktails which sounds so 1950ish that we both should be wearing Donna Reed ensembles complete with pearls and dainty shoes with pointed toes. I need a brick patio and a husband wearing an ascot.
My town had woods everywhere. The ones below my house weren’t very big, but they had blueberry bushes, the swamp and a wonderful old tree with a split trunk which served as a plank for the pirate ship and whatever else filled our imaginings. Once we found a tiny wooden shack made with boards of all different sizes. Inside were magazines some of which had naked women. We didn’t go back there for the longest time, and when we did, the shack was gone. All that was left were a few boards. A water tower was at the top of a hill at one edge of the woods. We always wanted to climb the tower, but we never did. A small outcrop of rocks surrounded one side of the tank. Once we’d reached the tower, we used to sit on the rocks and rest as if we’d climbed Mount Everest instead of a grassy hill which wasn’t very steep.
We’d move out of the woods to the field across the street and watch the horses and try to tempt them to us with grass but we weren’t ever successful. The closer we got, the further away they got. Sometimes we’d hike to another set of woods to a pond where we’d once built a raft. We got the idea from Swiss Family Robinson. It sank on its maiden voyage.
We’d arrive home late in the afternoon. We were always grimy, sweaty and thirsty, the best signs of a great summer day.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: grimy and dirty, pirate ships, ponds, rafts, woods
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
July 21, 2011 at 1:38 pm
My old home town has always had lots of forest in and around it but now days they say they need the space for more apartments. But people has started to protest and perhaps they actually can win 🙂
I grew up close to a big park where they had saved most of it as real forest. We used to go to a pond as well but it was to shallow to be able to have a raft in it 🙂
But we used to catch salamanders and frogs in it 🙂 Lots of people with aquariums went there too to catch daphnia and cyclops as fish food. It was in that pond I realized that I had a leech on my foot 🙂 🙂 It didn´t feel anything but just the thought of having it on me scared me to death 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
July 21, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Christer,
There are still places here with woods and ponds. They are part of the land trust, preserved spaces which will never be developed. My woods are gone now-the area is covered with apartments for the elderly. The worse was the loss of the swamp. It was a four season playground. We caught polliwogs and frogs.
July 21, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Those were the best ways to tell if you had a good summer’s day. And I recall a friend and myself moving an old discarded cement trough (sp) into the Potomac River pushing it along with long sticks. When one stick broke we laughed hysterically because the old metal crate was going out with the tide. Having given up, too tired to use the other stick because all we did is go round and round we hailed a Coast Guard boat that picked us up and took us to SW DC for us to wait for a parent to pick us up. They left our crate where it was in the water. I will never forget that experience.
July 21, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Z&Me,
I am picturing the two of you going round and round, and I’m having a good laugh. What kid could pass up the opportunity to pole down the Potomac? I sure as heck couldn’t have.
July 21, 2011 at 7:19 pm
I am here in New Jersey where the temperatures have been in the low 90s all week. It’s refreshing because that’s about 10 degrees cooler than in Texas. I love driving through the woods with the air conditioning going full blast. I think roughing it is Motel 6.
July 21, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Bob,
Here on the cape we were not part of today’s weather advisory but tomorrow’s is aimed right at us. Temps in the high 90’s with the heat index over 100. I’m not leaving the house, and I’m letting the air stay on full blast.
July 21, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Wearing an ascot properly requires a pipe: http://www.peterson.ie/pipes/pipe&pouch-set.html
or : http://www.oldmorris.com/pipes-etc/pipes/
Cheers
July 21, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Minicapt,
All of them are beautiful pipes, but i think the tobacco pouches don’t do the pipes justice.
July 22, 2011 at 3:44 am
Summer was another world. We waved goodbye to our winter home and town, and went to the beach town about 60 miles away.
I prefer to pretend I was an only child but I did have or do have a sister who also lived with my parents and me. Sometimes she was even nice– celebrated my half birthday by buying me a book, or a comic. Most times she was horrid. I didn’t care– the ocean, cycling down to wherever I needed to go, reading swimming– I have my fondest memories there. I’ve been “nesting” here a time, with a break to go swimming in the warm pool.. The brick patio might be nice, but personally, I’d forget the husband.
Waving,
Lori
July 22, 2011 at 10:51 am
Lori,
The beach was a weekend destination for us. My family could never have afforded a whole summer at a beach house. Some years, though, we’d stay at a friend’s cottage right at the beach. It wasn’t a favorite spot as it was in Maine with its freezing cold ocean. We usually swam in the warm tidal pools at low tide.
Summer for us was the freedom of every day, of bike riding, going to the park and a drive-in movie every week.