Seasonal Splendour....Summer

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world." ~Ada Louise Huxtable

Photo: bleeding heart plant from my garden

I have to admit that seasons of extreme weather are not my favourites, I delight in the mild weathers of spring and fall. Ontario winters are too cold and the summers are too hot, in that humid and gross kind of way. However, with every season comes a new set a pleasures and experiences that are unique only to that time of year. As a child, summer represents freedom. Free from school, free from structured days, free from most of your clothes as you run barefoot through the backyard in your bathing suit. As an adult, unless you are a teacher (lucky to have the summers off) life carries on through the summer, we seek out air conditioning to avoid that wall of thick humid air, and before you can even finish your annual gardening, summer says goodbye. When I was a kid, it was like time stood still for a while during those summer months. I would float in my back yard swimming pool, take a bike ride around the neighbourhood to dry off, get in the pool again and sometimes lay right on the hot pavement to dry off this time. The day would carry on just like that. Mom would pop out the sliding doors off the deck with freezies or a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Then, as dawn seemed to suddenly turn to dusk, we would get dragged in from outside. We would likely be planning the next game with the neighbourhood kids on our bikes down the street, we could hear our parents yelling from the porch.

Photo: Jalen and his best friend Ella staying up way past bedtime for some Canada Day fun in their Pj's

Now that I have children I find joy simply watching the summer through their innocent eyes. The shrieks of laughter as Jalen and Ruby run through the sprinkler, the excitement as I come outside with freezies. Blowing bubbles, finding bugs, water guns, running through the grass barefoot and staying up way past their bedtime to roast marshmallows over the fire. Last night, I put the sprinkler on to water my garden, made myself a cup of tea and sat on my front porch as my kids ran around playing in their pj's. I always thought it was so cool as a kid that in the summer time we were allowed to get our jammies on and come back outside! We love watermelon at our house and tend to eat piece after piece till the melon is gone and our bellies are bursting. When I was a kid, the hose was always off bounds for some reason, while it was filling up our little backyard pool we weren't allowed to touch it. For this reason, I let my kids have fun with the garden hose. They take turns watering the gardens and spraying each other (usually till one of them screams "NO THANK-YOU!!! after they've had enough)

Photo: Ruby getting sprayed by Jalen with the hose!

My soul seems to comes alive in autumn, however I must not forget the joyful simplicities of summer. I delight in eating too much watermelon, warm nights outside with my glass of crisp Pinot Grigio (I recommend Barefoot from California) and waiting on our covered front porch for a summer thunderstorm to roll in.