by admin on September 1, 2010
No longer can you go outside after 9pm and enjoy the waning rays of sunshine. We lost nearly an hour of daylight in the month of August alone. I feel as though I lost August. How did September get here so quick?
The leaves have started turning colors. Bright yellows mixed with brilliant oranges and reds are replacing the green foliage that shaded our yard all summer long.
Today, I drained our pool. Countless hours of refreshment and enjoyment were had (mostly by the kids) in the pool all summer long. Now all that is left is a rather large ugly patch of dead grass.
I didn’t get all of the “summer” projects done that I wanted to. The deck still needs staining. The shed still needs painting. I did get the nesting box done for the chickens, but that also needs to be painted.
We did have a great time camping with friends a couple of times. Went to the beach a few times. Saw a number of simply beautiful sunsets. Witnessed a few shooting stars. Ate way too many ice cream cones, but I don’t care.
It was a great summer, but it (like my previous 33 summers) went by too fast.
Our son heads back to school next week. He’s super excited and will do great. That leaves a quiet house with just my daughter and I during the day.
I’m not ready, but fall waits for no one.
And so summer falls and with it winter awaits.
Yesterday, we took the kids biking in town. One of the safest and least traveled places in town is the cemetery so that is where we biked.
While we biked through the cemetery I tried to find where my Great-Grandma Ora Clark was buried. I had not been by her grave in a few years and my memory wasn’t doing me any favors.
Anyway, as my son and I biked around trying, in vain, to find her headstone I thumbed through some memories that were stashed in the cobwebbed corner of my brain.
Thoughts of my Grandma Clark always lead to Ritz Crackers and 7-UP.
For whatever reason, that was always the snack of choice offered at her house. I will always remember ice cold 7-UP in her refrigerator and a box of Ritz Crackers up in her cupboard.
She used to live in a tiny house on Sevison Road that had a huge sycamore tree in the front yard out by the road. We used to drag an old paint-splattered wooden ladder out of the shed and use it to climb up in the crook of the tree.
I’ve driven by the tiny old house and the huge sycamore tree is still there. The thing is, it is no longer huge. Like every other memory from childhood the tree was remembered from the viewpoint of a little boy running around in his sneakers.
Someday maybe I’ll stop and see if the owner would mind if I hoisted my two kids up in the crook of the tree for a quick photo.
