Official Summer Greetings

Ahhh! A hammock, a book, and a glass of lemonade....

This weekend marks the summer solstice.
It's interesting how
the first day of summer on the calendar
can be the same day
as Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream."
We spent Thursday and Friday
(our summer babysitting routine)
with granddaughters
Anna, five,
and Lucy, two,
and Paul joined us Friday night and Saturday
while Kate was at a conference at NPR headquarters.

School has been out for almost two weeks,
but learning is a daily occurrence. 

Anna learned
the joys of hammock, lemonade, and book
(Boxcar Children's Blue Bay Mystery recommended),
brick sidewalks have patterns,
lifting too many bricks
can make your stomach muscles sore,
life jackets really do make you float,
and some flowers are called "blue-eyed grass."
Really.
To bees, nectar is like lemonade
and pollen is like Chee-tos dust.
Mortar is fun to mix.
You eat Juneberries in June.
Mountain laurel has flower parts
that act like sling shots.
When you get a belly-ache
from eating too much applesauce
with cinnamon and sugar,
you can always play hospital.

Lucy learned
deer eat the corn you throw in the field,
you can sing yourself to sleep
by bellowing "Are you sleeping?
ARE YOU SLEEPING BRUDDA JOHN?!?"
Grammy can do underduckies.
Chee-tos are good
...except for the ones
that have been on the cabin floor for hours.
You can go fishing in puddles.
Squirt guns can water plants.
Bop keeps pretzels in the jeep.
Outhouses are fun if someone holds onto you.
"I wuv dat guy!" melts Bop's heart.
Hickory Dickory Dock cannot be read too many times.

Paul learned
five-year-olds can make your favorite rhubarb pie,
World Cup soccer is available on the mountain
if you aren't picky about which game you watch,
tree stands sometimes blow over...
and winches are wonderful.
Tarps over sandpiles
are good places to find snakes.
Winter-killed ivy
is difficult to remove from chimneys.
Masonry skills improve over time,
and Anna
has inherited
some of his musical ability.

Sue learned
sometimes bears wake you up
by crunching birdboxes,
small children are impressed
by mediocre scooter skills,
and watching for injured chipmunks
to emerge from daylilies
can be calming.
Creek clay can swallow shoes.
When jumping into swimming holes,
it's a good idea
to have your sunglasses
attached to your body.
Fast water can knock you down.
Bruises happen.
Two-year-olds like bug spray, not for its repellent abilities,
but because the lemongrass oil mix
is in a spray bottle.

Bop/Den learned
pancakes can be consumed
as fast as you can make them.
It's more fun to lay stone with a friend.
When Bop needs a band-aid,
everyone wants a band-aid.
Sometimes turkey gobblers
prefer the neighbor's field,
and sometimes
you don't realize
how much you've missed your son.

This first official week of summer,
may your books be many
and your band-aids be few.
It'll be midsummer before you blink.

Blessings,

Sue's scooter-riding abilities are recorded for posterity on the driveway.

Sue and Denny

Lucy caught a fish-leaf!

Bop calls it scaffolding. The girls call it a jungle gym.

Anna reassembles the sidewalk. Re-laying seemed easier than weeding.

 

Did you know that mortar can be called "mud'?