Summer Break

Summer is definitely here – after all the Spring Conundrum, with Mother Nature not being able to decide whether we were having winter or summer – now there's no doubt! North Central Missouri is in the 90's (overnight temps in the 70's), and high humidity. We've been popping the a/c on before noon the past few days.

Younger daughter called on her way home from work today, which she often does. She asked me what I did today. I must really be getting the hang of this “premature retirement” - I couldn't think of all that much to tell her that I'd done, but I seemed to be busy much of the day!

I did pull the pea plants out of their planter this morning and planted some blossoming flowers. We did some errands around town and picked up a few things at the grocery store. I sliced up some cucumbers and put them in a mayonnaise dressing, and I washed up some sweet cherries and blackberries for us to munch on. But did I accomplish a LOT? Not really, but that's okay. It was a good day.

The summers of my childhood sometimes seemed very long. There was a lot to do on the farm, but the days drug for me as I transitioned from one school year to the next. We were ten miles out of the small town where I went to school. We had close neighbors, but it wasn't unusual for me to go the entire summer break and not see some of my classmates.

I had cousins who lived just half a mile down the road, but they were in another school district. There were seven of them and just one of me, so we enjoyed visiting one another – they would come over one or two at a time and enjoy the quiet. I relished the visits to their house and having so many people to play with. We never ran out of things to do.

I had one classmate who went to the same church, so I did usually see her every week. A couple of other classmates' mothers were in the same neighborhood club as my Mom, so I had the possibility of seeing them two or three times during the summer if they accompanied their mothers to club meeting. We also had no phone when I was growing up, so there often was zero contact with other class members.

But, just like today, I seemed to be busy all the time. I spent endless hours playing along the little creek that ran through the farm. Mom worked half days, so I had my daily chores of sweeping the floors, dusting, carrying water from the well (no running water at our house), etc. If it was wash day, I helped hang the clothes and then gather them in after they dried. As I got older, I did a lot of the yard mowing. And there was always something to be done in the garden. We had a milk cow who seemed to delight in being at the far reaches of the farm, so I often accompanied Dad in the evenings as we hunted her so we could bring her to the barn for evening milking.

Our evenings in the summer were usually spent out in the yard. We had no air conditioning, and summer TV consisted only of reruns. So we chose to enjoy the cooler evening air. Those were the times I heard my Dad's Army stories from World War II.......there was never anything negative talked about, we just heard about the funny times and one soldier called “Raspberry” who was always in trouble and on KP as they built the Al-Can Highway.

Everyone has summer memories – I hope this helps you embrace yours. I will be away from Blogspot for a few days......we have an 8^th birthday party in Blue Springs tomorrow night, and another dance recital Monday evening in Liberty. Have a great weekend – I'll talk to you Tuesday!