Posted tagged ‘summer’
March 22, 2014
Winter is a solitary season. I sit in my warm house with the doors shut against the cold. My neighbors and I wave as we drive pass each other going one place and another. The world goes quiet when it’s winter, and I seldom hear outside sounds except for the rain and the wind. I have more sloth days in winter than in any other season. Winter days are for flannel, sweatshirts and warm socks. Winter nights are for down comforters. I read, sometimes the whole day into the night. I like soups and stews and macaroni and cheese. An afternoon nap is a bit of bliss. I abide winter in its turn.
This time of year is the yin-yang season, the time of winter and spring. It is the most frustrating of all the seasons because it isn’t really one or the other. The calendar says spring but the weather is sometimes wintry, cold and even snowy. Two warm days lull us into thinking it is spring then a day of 23˚ throws winter right back at us. The only consolation is in the garden where the spring bulbs have become flowers bursting with color. Today will be warm. Tomorrow will be in the 20’s during the day and the teens at night.
Summer is the social season. I am out and about a couple of evenings each week and spend my days on the deck sitting under the trees, sometimes reading, sometimes just sitting. My friends and I have our movie nights and game nights. My neighbors are out in their yards mowing and raking and playing with their kids. I can hear their voices from my house. The birds are loudest in the morning when they greet the new day. I love the songs they sing. The front garden is filled with flowers of every color, and I always stop to admire it when I go to get my papers. The rain in summer seems gentler even with thunder and lightning. Sometimes I sit under my outside umbrella during a rainstorm just to hear the drops. I love summer nights with all the sounds of night birds, the flickering of fireflies in the backyard and the candlelight glowing from the glass tree hangings. Summer is just so glorious.
Fall is the magnificent season, my favorite of them all. The garden shops are filled with pumpkins and mums whose colors are a bit muted, perfect for fall, the end of the growing season. It is still warm here during the day but cools a bit during the night. In late fall, when even the days get cool, I always think they are a slow easing into winter, a warning about what’s coming. I know winter must have its turn, but I wish it wasn’t at the expense of fall.
Categories: Musings
Tags: bird song, cold, cold nights, flannels, rain, solitary season, spring, summer, sweatshirts, warm days, winter, yin yang
Comments: 18 Comments
October 27, 2013
If you looked up fall in the dictionary, they’d be a picture of today. The sun is shining, the sky is a pale blue and the breeze is brisk with a bit of a chill. Fall is in full burst. My front yard is filled with fallen leaves and pine needles. The grass doesn’t needed mowing any more. Yesterday my irrigation system was shut down for the season, and today I’ll clear the water from my back yard hoses. It’s time to close down the deck for the season though I’ll save a place to sit on a sunny day, my big wooden chair. I love fall, but I find it sad when fall begins to move toward winter.
Summer is always exuberant. It is warmth and colors and the sweet smell of flowers wafting through the air. Every morning I’d get the papers and then stop to look at my front garden. I’d lean against the car and marvel at the beauty of the flowers. I always noticed a few empty spots and would get excited at needing to buy new flowers. I can never have enough flowers. I’d finally pull myself away and go into the house, get my coffee and go outside on the deck. It takes me a long time to read the papers when I’m outside. I stop and watch the birds at the feeders and Gracie in the backyard. I listen to the singing. I raise my face to the sun and close my eyes. Summer fills me.
Fall always seems to have a faster pace than summer, and I think of October, nearing its end, as the bridge between fall and winter. Fall has a unique beauty when the leaves turn, and the trees are filled with color, muted color. My garden celebrates the season with fall flowers. The plants I put in last year were in full bloom this fall, and I was surprised as I had forgotten planting them. This year I added three more fall flowers, and they must have been happy to be planted as they bloomed a week or two later. Of all the seasons fall surprises me the most. The days are sometimes as warm as summer while the nights get downright cold. The sunlight slants in an odd direction. Darkness comes earlier and earlier.
My heat comes on in the mornings now. I can hear it as I’m waking up. The days seem to be warm enough to keep the furnace at bay, but I doubt that will last too much longer. Winter is coming.
Categories: Musings
Tags: chill of the day, closing down the deck, coming winter, darkness, deck, fall flowers, fallen leaves and pine needles, flowers, furnace, heat, lovely fall day, newspapers, October, slanting sunlight, summer, warmth and color
Comments: 23 Comments
May 16, 2013
Today is supposed to be warm, maybe even hot. Yesterday Skip, my factotum, was here all day getting the backyard and deck ready for summer. Looks like the timing was perfect. The vegetable garden was weeded, its fence mended, candles hung in the trees, furniture uncovered and cleaned, Gracie’s holes filled, including the one closest to China, backyard ornaments put into the ground and my favorite new addition set up from the heavy pine tree: two stars hung together with five tails extending from them all in white lights. I put them on the timer and last night the stars were beautiful. A few things remain, like planting the veggies and adding flowers and herbs to the pots and getting the shower ready, but that’ll wait until it’s warmer every day. I can’t help it. Seeing the deck ready makes me excited to be out there every day.
When I was a kid, and it was summer, we never stayed in the house, even when it rained. We’d find a leafy tree and stay under it to keep as dry as we could. Most days, though, we’d spend at the playground on the field at the bottom of our street. There were two college students there and at each of the playgrounds in town. They ran all the activities. One summer I painted a tray, and it was the best painting I’d ever done. Every summer I’d make lanyards or bracelets out of gimp. I could do all different knots. The first one I learned was the square knot then the round and then the flat. The round was for the lanyard and the flat was the best for a gimp bracelet. I made pot holders on that square loom with the hooks where you wove the cotton. I think I gave my mother one for every Christmas for years. I played horseshoes, checkers and softball and learned to play chess and tennis. For years I spend the entire day at that playground. The local paper, The Independent, had a playground section once a week,and I got my name in the paper a few times for winning at horseshoes and for being the winning pitcher in softball. Nothing makes a kid happier than to see her name in print.
I out grew the playground and spent summers round the house more. By the time I was a teenager, my friends and I were at the go out at night stage. I was on a drill team and we had drill practice two nights a week, and once every couple of weeks we’d go the drive-in. Some nights we just hung around the way teenagers do. My mother didn’t seem to miss the potholders.
Categories: Musings
Tags: candles, deck, gimp, horseshoes, lanyards, lights, playground, pot holders, summer, tennis
Comments: 14 Comments
April 7, 2013
Still a bit on the chilly side, but the weatherman promised 50˚. I, however, am skeptical. Breakfast was tasty at the diner this morning: French toast with Canadian bacon, sort of an international meal says I with tongue in cheek. Gracie and I made one stop on the way home, and that should do it for the day.
On my way home I got to thinking about the seasons. Maybe it was all the flowers I saw as I passed by front gardens. I decided spring is a flamboyant old woman who wears boas and flowing scarfs and dresses. She is bright with color. Her movements are exaggerated. She speaks quickly and her hands are always in motion. Her purple boa is around her neck like a scarf and the fluffy part waves from her breath when she speaks. Spring’s clothes are never color coordinated. That’s not her point.
Winter is an old man hunched by age. He wears a long dark coat almost to his ankles. It has large black buttons. He wears a hat, a fedora, which doesn’t cover his ears. They are perpetually cold. He keeps his hands clenched in his coat pockets hoping for a bit of warmth which doesn’t come. His fingers are stiff from the cold. Winter shuffles when he walks. He wears galoshes which are never snapped and barely stay on his feet. Winter is always sad-looking.
Summer wears orange and yellow and flip-flops. Her shirts are covered in huge flowers that look like orchids. Her face and arms are tanned. Her freckles have returned. There is a lightness to her, a reflection maybe of the warmth of the sun. She is joyful at the beauty of the day.
Fall is the season with the most difficult of all personalities. It is a bit of summer and a hint of winter. The last flashes of color are in the garden. The trees are ablaze with reds and yellows. I always think fall is giving us a warning of what is to come and is playing with us a bit. The mornings have a chill while the afternoons are warm, and, once the sun goes down, the evenings are cold. Fall dresses in muted colors and, after the summer, seems quiet, even contemplative. Sometimes I think of fall as a long line of monks wearing brown robes with their cowls over the heads as they walk slowly and sing a Gregorian chant.
Categories: Musings
Tags: colors, fall, summer, the seasons, weather, winter'spring
Comments: 17 Comments
April 2, 2013
Spring is in hiatus. My furnace is blasting away, and I’m glad as the house was cold this morning. There was no lingering to appreciate the flowers and the colors in my front garden when I went to get the papers. I noticed a few feeders need filling so I’ll venture out to the deck later. One errand only today: dog food and cat litter at Agway.
The Red Sox were tremendous yesterday. I wore my green Sox t-shirt and my blue sweatshirt with the World Series Emblem. Rally monkey sat and watched the entire game having nothing to do: the Sox led the whole time. We had hot dogs for lunch as befitting a ballgame. Much of the team is new, and this was their first game in a Boston uniform so we spent time trying to figure out who was at bat, but Pedroia we know and his first at bat was a single, a great way to open his season! I know it’s only one game, but it is the first opener the Sox have won in a while. It was a good afternoon.
Watching baseball made me impatient for summer. My deck is still wearing winter with all the furniture covered, the candles packed away and the yard ornaments in storage. I want warm mornings and breakfast on the deck. I can hardly wait for our first Saturday movie. I don’t have a theme for this year so I’ll have to start thinking and looking. I do have a new bird for the yard, a Christmas present. It is white, looks a bit like an egret and is huge. In my Easter basket was a small door and two small windows, obviously for a garden sprite to set up housekeeping. I also have some new lights, two stars with trails of lights, for the trees in the back. The backyard in summer is magical.
I remember lit punk sticks from when I was little. They had this smell I can still identify, and I loved waving the stick around as if it were a sparkler. I used to watch as the stick burned smaller and smaller. The smell kept the bugs away but I never noticed. It was the fun of the punk stick I remember the most.
We used mosquito coils in Ghana because lots of places had no screens. I really liked the smell of them as they burned. The coil had a hole at the smallest part, and you had to be careful when you fit the hole on the holder or the coil could break. The coils burned from the outside ring to the inside smallest ring. Ash just fell on the floor. Once, when my friends and I were hitching a ride from Koforidua to Accra, a Mercedes-Benz stopped. The owner of the car was a Lebanese man who made and sold mosquito coils. He gave us a few to take with us. The other part of that ride I remember is we were in the back seat where the smell of the exhaust was almost overpowering. We opened both windows and stuck our heads out so we’d survive the ride, but it was worth it: we got free mosquito coils and a ride in a Mercedes all the way to Accra.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Baseball, cold day, hot dogs, magic, mosquito coil, mosquito coils, punk sticks, Red Sox, summer, the deck'movies, where's spring?
Comments: 27 Comments
August 23, 2012
The morning is sunny and warm. This room, still in the shade, is cool and comfy. The nights have been dropping to the 60’s, perfect for sleeping, and will be as cool for the next few days. Crossing off items on my before-I-go list continues. Yesterday three bit the dust; already this morning one more is finished. At least three more will be completed by bedtime, and I’ll be left with the big one: packing on Saturday morning.
Last night was the final play of the season. I have no idea where the summer has gone. When I was a kid, summer seemed to last forever filled as it was with days and days of play. I was always surprised when we went shoe shopping, the first sign of summer’s end and the encroachment of the school year.
My favorite summers were when I was a teacher and didn’t work. Those were my traveling days, and I traveled all over, mostly in Europe, with just a few clothes in a backpack. The trips were usually 4 or 5 weeks long, and I went every summer. I had always dreamed of traveling to the ends of the earth to see the pages of my geography book come alive and those summer trips fulfilled my dreams.
My most amazing summer was training in Ghana where I stepped into a brand new world, something I couldn’t have ever imagined. I remember so well those first few days. They were like a dream. Everywhere was green. There were palm trees and there were lizards scurrying across the walkways in front of me. Women dressed in beautiful cloths and carried baskets and buckets on their heads. Little kids followed us. I remember standing just outside my room, on the second floor of the dormitory in Winneba, and looking below at the rusted tin roofs of the houses. I could see goats and I could see people going about their business. I was enthralled.
I love my summers now. My friends and I are usually on the deck, eating, playing games and laughing. We try to stretch the deck season as long as we can and usually last well into long pants and sweatshirt cold nights. The saddest part is when I have to close down in the fall. It’s the adult version of buying new shoes for schools.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Africa, backpacking, deck nights, Peace Corps training, summer, summer play, traveling, Winneba
Comments: 21 Comments
July 17, 2012
Mother Nature is running amok. It is far too hot for July. The Cape will reach 88˚ while Boston may break the record and reach 100˚. It’s a bit like winter, not from the temperature but from the amount of time I spend inside the house. I am so comfortable here that I dread going out into the heat. Tomorrow, happily, should be the last of this weather, and cooler days will follow and maybe even some rain: thunder showers would be nice.
I don’t remember when heat became an issue for me. When I was a kid, every day seemed the same, a day for playing outside regardless of the temperature though I could definitely tell which days were hotter because I got grubbier: the dirt and the sweat tended to mingle. When I was a teenager, I never went out much during the day. That was when the nights were more appealing. That was when my friends got their licenses, and that was when we’d drive around at night with no destinations in mind. We’d chip in our quarters to get a buck’s worth of gas to get us through the evening. Sometimes we’d stop at Carroll’s Hamburgers where all the parking spots were filled, and teenagers milled around or sat on the hoods of their cars. Other times we just slowly drove through the lot to check out the action. Some nights, after we’d had drill team practice, we’d stop at the diner to have desserts. We’d usually walk from the field uptown to O’Grady’s then we’d walk home, leaving in all different directions. I don’t remember those nights being hot either.
At some time, I don’t know exactly when, an intolerance for extremes sneaked in and became part of me. I don’t like the really cold days of winter, and I hate feeling hot and sweaty and strangled by the humidity in summer. The thermostat has been getting higher and higher on winter days, and the central air has been blowing more and more each summer. I remember seeing old ladies wearing sweaters on a balmy summer night, and I was mystified. My mother used to keep her house so hot in winter we’d wear t-shirts and complain. My neighbors find 78˚a comfortable AC temperature and I snorted quietly when they told me, but I can see it coming. The older I get the less I seem to adjust. I’ll have to keep the afghan close for winter and put on socks in the summer when the AC is blasting. My feet get really cold.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: driving around, Ghana, heat, intolerance for weather, Mother Nature, summer, teenagers, weather, winter
Comments: 19 Comments
July 6, 2012
The air is already thick with humidity. Nothing is moving. The leaves just sit there on the branches. Even the birds are quiet. This room, at the back of the house, is still cool and dark, but it won’t be by mid-afternoon. Today the house with the AC will be my refuge.
We are spoiled. Our expectations have changed. The house is too hot? Put in central air. It’s a pain to move the hoses around the yard and garden. Time for an irrigation system. You want dinner ASAP. Put it in the microwave. Don’t want to wait for the charcoal for the barbecue. Buy a gas grill. Go from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned store.
I remember summers when I was young. They were filled with wanderings and woods and the swamp. Being sweaty and even a bit dirty were signs of a good time, of a day well spent. I was always so exhausted I fell asleep in the sweltering heat of my bedroom. Even my father hunting and killing mosquitoes with his rolled-up magazine woke me for no more than a minute or two even though he sometimes stood on my bed to reach the ceiling. That ceiling and all the others in the house had blots which represented another kill. My father was possessed.
I lived in Bolga. It was the hottest part of the country with the least amount of rain. I didn’t even have a fan. I went to bed still wet from my shower and slept through the hot night. Later, just before the rains when the humidity came, I moved outside and slept on my mattress in the back of the house. I saw a sky filled with a million stars. I always had no trouble falling asleep.
My bedroom on the third floor with the heat from the afternoon sun was so hot I couldn’t fall asleep so for most of the summer I slept downstairs on the couch with the back door opened. Later I splurged and bought a fan. One year I finally broke down and got a window air-conditioner for my bedroom. I tolerated the hot-house downstairs but luxuriated in the coolness of the bedroom where I easily fell asleep. Then I decided it made no sense to be hot and uncomfortable or to have to sit upstairs all afternoon so I went with central air.
It seems the older I get the more spoiled I become. I have to admit, though, I’m loving it.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Air conditioner, air-conditioning, Barbecue grill, heat, Home and Garden, humidity, old days, Sleep, summer
Comments: 9 Comments
June 30, 2012
Today will be warm, 85˚ warm. Right now, though, the house is still morning cool, especially this room. The dog is sleeping in her crate. I can hear her snoring. She and I both slept in this morning. Last night I was up until after 2am watching the Red Sox playing Seattle first then some really bad movies. My taste definitely changes when the choices are so few. I’ll tolerate almost anything to pass the time until the Sandman comes.
My acorn squash has flowers, and I have already eaten some of my tomatoes. I figure my first year with a vegetable garden is a success. Not only that, it’s been fun watching everything grow. Today I’ll have my cherry tomatoes in a small salad. The first tomato got popped right into my mouth. It was wonderful!
Today is quiet. Usually on a Saturday I can hear people’s voices and lawnmowers and the occasional car going down the road. I don’t know where everybody is, but I’ll take the quiet. I have new book called The Leftovers which is calling for me. I figure a cold ice tea, the book and some cheese and crackers will be terrific on the deck later.
Fall is my favorite season here on the cape, but summer is a close second. It is when spend my days outside, even to taking an outdoor shower. I grill my dinner. We have movies on the deck. Some afternoons I fight Gracie for the lounge and I take a nap. The nights are filled with the wonder of fireflies flitting around the trees and the mornings are bird songs. Even the sounds of lawnmowers are welcome.
Sometimes I look at the cape as if I were on vacation. I drive on all the scenic roads and along the shore. I visit shops instead of stores. Sometimes I stop for lunch and have clams or shrimp and French fries as take-out. Every now and then I eat at A&W Root Beer and always have hot dogs. A sunny day is the best time for meandering. Everyone else is at the beach. The roads are mine. The last time I roamed I went all the way to Wellfleet. I took Route 28 down and Route 6A back. Before I went home, I stopped for an ice cream cone. It was a perfect day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Boston Red Sox, cape cod, deck, garden, summer, vegetables, warm day
Comments: 18 Comments
June 20, 2012
Hello Summer!
Those words seem almost magical. It wasn’t that long ago we were longing for the summer and trying to stay warm during the dark nights of winter. Our feet froze in the snow. We cursed the shoveling. We huddled on the couch under afghans. Sure, the snow was lovely falling down but then we had to contend with it for days. Would summer never come? Well, here it is in all its glory, and today we’ll usher in the new season with the hottest day so far. Boston will be at least 95°, and here we’ll reach the low 80’s. Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter, but I don’t care! Finally it’s summertime, deck time, movies outside on a Saturday night, barbecues and outside showers.
I was on the deck earlier with my coffee and papers. It got hot. Gracie was in the shade and panting so we both came inside and the house felt wonderfully cool. This room gets the afternoon sun so it’s lovely in the mornings. From my perch here, I can see out my window. The leaves on the trees by the deck are barely moving. The sunlight is dappled. The sky is azure. Mother Nature did herself proud.
The beginning of summer always reminds of all those last days of school when we were finally free. The day felt like a holiday, not as good as Christmas but still high on the list of kids’ favorite days. No more getting up in the mornings and being grumpy at having to walk to school despite the weather. No more coats or hats or mittens or even spring jackets. The bike could stay out of the cellar until it started to get too cold again. Every day for the next couple of months was ours: unplanned and waiting to be filled with all the fun of summer. The street lights didn’t come on until really late so back out we’d go after dinner. I still remember the sounds of those summer evenings: the shouts and laughter of all the kids in my neighborhood, including me, as the day disappeared and the summer night was upon us. It was time to watch for the fireflies.
Categories: Musings
Tags: firefly, heat, hot days, last day of school, Mother Nature, summer, the deck
Comments: 11 Comments
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