Summer’s Bounty

 

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,

we must carry it with us

or we find it not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

When summer comes with flowers and fruit, vegetable garden, and plenty, we rejoice in the fullnees of it. We sit on a shaded porch or walk in a wildflower painted meadow. We gaze at the clouds in the blue or the starry night sky.

Summer renews us and replenishes us even in its heat. We plant and watch things grow, eat fresh tomatoes and cucumbers chilled and salted. We pack up the extra and save to help us withstand winter.

We pick peas and slurp the red sweetness of watermelon. We stop to inhale the musky scent of ripe cantaloupe.

We cut rose buds for the kitchen windowsill and glory over the height and bright faces of sunflowers. We sit to watch hummingbirds at the feeders and roses, and cows romping in the field.

Dragonflies with white-tipped wings rest on the barbed wire fence’s top strand and then flit and flitter eating gnats made visible in the sinking golden of the sunset.

Grandchildren devour popsicles sitting on the porch swing and blow soap bubbles to enteratain themselves. They run and play on the hay bales. The heat never seems to dissaude them.

The sink is full of warm tomoatoes ready to be canned. The horses have the watermelon rinds thrown over the pasture fence for their treat. The cows wean their calves and dine on sumptuous green grass.

The children go off to summer camps and vacation Bible schools. It is hot. We work in the garden early but not early enough to miss the heat. A cool breeze saves the day. An after supper swim is delicious.

Summer is for the soul.

 

What do you love most about summer?