Gather Writing Essentials- Summers End

Thursday Writing Essentials, Summers End - Kimberly's Prompt

Summer's End

Though spring has always been my favorite season, summer comes in a close second. It's nearing the  end of August and I'm rather dreading autumn.

Spring and summer, to me, signify new beginings and the chance to explore them; fresh fruit, flowers blooming, garden vegetables, green trees. In contrast, winter seems so long that I feel like I'll never see a green leaf on a tree, things sprouting from the ground, a bud ready to open and warmth. Sunny days, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. Did you lie on your back when you were younger and see things in those clouds? We did and sometimes, still do.

Magic belongs to summer. The magic of that watermelon that you'd planted from just a seed, is now ready to pick, so delicious that you hold the flavor in your mouth, thinking that almost nothing will taste half as good, until next year. We had a tomato this week (and I grew up on tomato or cucumber sandwiches, I'm no stranger to gardens, or weeds), that with one slice, covered an entire piece of bread. It was huge and with a bit of mayonnaise, we ate half the loaf - yes, with that one tomato! Small seeds for pickling cucumbers that we end up eating more, than we ever pickle are almost gone. We make sandwiches out of them, too.

I've spent the last two days, making spaghetti sauce to freeze, in two, five quart slow-cookers. It took well over twenty-four hours, but it will be so worth it. I did the same thing last year and have for many years and get enough frozen, although we have a meal or two first, to make it through until the next harvest comes in. Mark helped me chop all kinds of vegetables and the more you add, the better it gets, especially when you can go outside and pick your oregano and a bit of basil, among other herbs and spices.

Then, there are those hours and hours, when it just doesn't "taste" right and all of a sudden, it does. That's magic. As the hours go by, you find yourself adding things, well, for one thing, I don't measure much, so I add as I go.

I've still got squash to freeze, zucchini and yellow, which I tend to cook, cool and freeze together. I like pretty food. We've got all colors of peppers as well. Those don't have to be cooked, you just cut them up and  freeze them in a big bag and take out what you want to use - the taste of summer stays. I froze enough last year to get me through till this year. Green and yellow wax beans freeze after cooking nicely, but for some reason, not only could I not grow the wax beans, it seemed like nobody else could, either. So, I have green beans and green, Italian beans.

We've grown a fifty cent bunch of spearmint and peppermint and they're huge and the scent is wonderful. On a hot day, iced tea made from either is great.

We've several colors and mixed colors of day lilies, that we had a lot more of last year. I'm hoping they come back next year as a bug we've never seen (picture a ladybug, but plain orange and not quite the right size) chomps your lilies that are trying to bloom. We still don't know what they were or are, but they sure like lilies. They even ate some of the bulbs, or we'd have still had all of them.

We watched our two hibiscus bushes turn into trees this summer, too big for where we'd put them, but their purple blossoms seemed to multiply daily. Next summer, they'll be trimmed down quite a bit or we won't be able to get into our apartment. We also watched our hydrangea blossom (and it's still blossoming) a deep blue, probably from all the acid rain we had this spring. One other, smaller hybiscus, now has blooms on it that are as big as dinner plates, though the plant has stayed small. Those blooms only last for a day and you pick them up and more appear, with huge delicate whitish-pink flowers on them.

We've no small child to get ready for school, as ours is grown, but the memories linger. We've no grand-children either, at least not yet, though our son keeps telling us he's not having any, we'll see. If nothing else, we'll borrow someone elses, as we've done before. I guess that's one of the fun parts of summer's end.

When the leaves, so green, turn and begin to fall off, though they have their own beauty, We celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas and since I'm not about to go out in that cold and maybe snow, I do the cooking and baking and our little apartment gets full of happy people.

I know winter's on it's way, with it's cold and ice and snow. Grey days instead of blue skies. Days that you stay in as much as you can, because we've gotten a lot of snow for the past two years. Last year it was over my head and that's just too much and too cold. So, we wait for spring and then summer, to enjoy it all over again.

The season's all have their own magic, but I have my favorites. Doesn't everyone?

mn - 2011


I have another book to give away this week--same title. I will draw the name this week from those who submit under this week's theme: Summer's End. The school year is starting soon and for most people that signifies the end of summer. Is there something special you do to celebrate the end of summer? Do you try to get in one more trip to the beach, a lake, a friend's home? Or are you maybe glad to see summer end?

Be sure to post your submissions to the Gather Writing Essential, and to use Thursday Writing Essential in your tags.

I look forward to reading your work!