“When summer wans, its sun still warms our hearts and feeds our souls. ”
c e hollis
Tomatoes fresh from my garden or from Farmer’s market are sliced on a plate with every supper. many go into jars and they line the pantry shelves where they will make great stews and soups and spaghetti sauce. A red spotted purple is attracted to the serviceberries. Magnolias sprout their red seed pods among the ivory flowers and shiny green leaves. Crepe myrtle blossoms smell like a heaven.
Red is a summer color from roses to watermelon, from tomatoes to zinnias sunrises to sunsets—red beautiful and bright bold and boisterous. Red a warm and happy color. Who doesn’t love red cherries, raspberries, strawberries, peppers, beets, strawberry ice cream, cherry slushes, waremelon and pomegranates?
Flowers––roses, poppies, zinnias, hibiscus, geraniums and tulips are some I love. There are many more.
I love a cherry summer sunset and a rosy sky at sunrise. The red of a child’s face when he has been running and playing on a hot summer day and needs a cherry limeade to cool off, or a cherry popsicles. A red Schwinn bicycle is a dream bike. What child has not wanted one of his own?
In summer we make plum jelly and peach cobblers. There is strawberry shortcake topped with whipped cream. Spider lilies spring from the lawn suddenly like toadstools.
Grandkids sit on the porch swing or at the picnic table under the oak tree to slurp their cherry snow-cones. There on the same porch terra cotta pots boast red geraniums. Roses climb the fence by the end of the driveway.
Apples begin to change slowly from green to red in the orchard. I love all the reds.
Yesterday, I saw something drifting overhead. As it got closer I found it was a red and white striped hot air balloon. I watched as it floated over. I strained to see who might be seated in the basket watching all of us below but couldn’t see a soul. The wind was pushing it south like the warm things.
A flag flutters and whips in the wind spelling freedom with its red, white and blue. At the community garden someone had planted red clover to attract honey bees and butterflies.
In the summer of long ago we used to spend days visiting Grandma who lived in Texas. She had a sewing basket that she pulled out for needles and threads to mend tears and to help us little girls sew doll dresses. She had a lovely little tomato shaped pin cushion and it had a green leaf on top with a green thread holding a fat strawberry filled with metal shavings which she used to sharpen her pins. I’ll bet your grandma had one too!
“Come now, and let us reason together, ” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”
Isaiah 1:18
What’s Good About Home! 
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