Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?

Oh, what do you do in the summertime,
when all the world is green?
Do you fish in a stream,
or lazily dream on the banks as the clouds go by?
Is that what you do? So do I!

Oh, what do you do in the summertime,
when all the world is green?
Do you swim a pool, to keep yourself cool,
or swing in a tree up high?
Is that what you do? So do I!

Oh, what do you do in the summertime
when all the world is green?
Do you march in parades, or drink lemonades,
or count all the stars in the sky?
Is that what you do? So do I!

That Primary song was pretty much our anthem last week. With the grandchildren here, the week was busy, noisy, sometimes a bit crazy, but fun. Every morning, Russell was the first child up, just after me and before everyone else. When Stacey got up, he got his first breakfast of the morning. Later, when the girls were up, he had breakfast again with them. I think he might be part hobbit. Every day there were things to do to keep them all busy and happy – swimming, lemonade drinking, stargazing and, if nothing else, riding gators and bikes over at the Shillig's.

The week began with a perfect summer day. From sunrise to sunset, it was perfect. It was sunny. It was hot. There was a soft breeze that kept the air moving. It was stunning. I spent most of the morning in the garden weeding and deadheading. Miriam and the grandchildren picked up fallen apples for me. I worked until noon then came in to have lunch and rest for a while. At chore time I went back out, fed and watered the chickens and the pigs, then went back to work in the garden. I harvested shallots and set them to dry for a day or two. I prepped the bed they were growing in for a sowing of late lettuce. Then I went back to the weeds.

Miriam kept the children busy all day. They played Dutch Blitz in the morning. They watched a Harry Potter movie and made chocolate frogs. She took them swimming in the afternoon.

That evening we went to Music on the Lawn at the Ulysses Library. The performer was a man who played the bagpipes. He played various Scottish and Irish tunes, jigs, reels, and some hymns. He took requests and I asked him to play the Skye Boat Song, a song I learned as a child and have always loved.

Tuesday I had a doctor's appointment and that meant a lot of time spent in the car. I listened to a podcast on my drive to the doctor's office. It came up randomly, I didn't choose it. The topic was childhood and a child's sense of security and how it affects their adult lives. The commentators' voices were a little annoying and after a while I found myself only half listening as my brain engaged the subject and turned inward. The people on the podcast said that most people have a particular period during their childhood when they felt most secure that influences the rest of their lives, a sort of nostalgic anchor point that they use to measure the circumstances they encounter throughout their lives. As I drove along, I considered my life.

I think the time in my life when I felt most secure was around the age of eight and nine. I had my place firmly fixed in the hierarchy of my family – second of six children, oldest son, steady mother, hard working father. I felt like I was the master of my world. It was a small world. Physically, my domain comprised an area of New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, stretching from about 15th Street on the north to the Yellow Breeches Creek on the south, and Hillside Road on the west to the Susquehanna River on the east. The center point of my universe was our house at 431 Bridge Street. I knew every inch of that house and that area. I knew the streets and alleys, the shops, the theater, the two parks, Memorial Field and Community Park. If I didn't know all of our neighbors, they knew who I was – Dr. Howe's son. In my childish innocence, I felt secure. I could go wherever I wanted, wander from one end of my domain to the other, and there was no danger. Well, there was the river, and the railroad tracks, but I didn't think they were dangerous. It was the early 1960's and the larger world was in turmoil, but I was oblivious to it.

My childhood domain.

My larger world was still pretty small. It extended to Harrisburg across the river, where we went to church, and out to Mechanicsburg where Aunt Joyce lived, and just beyond that to Carlisle and the country club where my father played golf and where we swam in the summer. My world was populated by only a few dozen people, most of them relatives, plus some neighbors, and people from our little congregation, the West Shore Branch. At eight and nine, that world seemed immutable and I was happy in it.

Everything changed when I was ten. We moved to Ohio. I hadn't realized until then that my world could be uprooted and I could be cast into an unknown place surrounded by people I didn't know. That move caused a reaction in me. I felt the need to fix firmly in my memory everything I could remember about my old home. In my mind, I ran through places and people and events over and over again. The result was that, after four more moves as a child, teen, and young adult, my nostalgic anchor point became and has remained a few city blocks and a house on Bridge Street in New Cumberland, PA. I lost that world in 1968 – and it is truly lost. Time has changed everything about the place except my memory of it. It sits in my mind and heart as a Golden Age before the world and I grew up and all the innocence was rubbed away.

I don't know if I provided an environment for my own children growing up that gives them that nostalgic anchor point. There wasn't much to make them feel secure. We moved often over the first fifteen years of our marriage. By the time we settled here, Geoffrey, our oldest, was fourteen, and Josiah, the youngest, was eighteen months. Josiah and Hannah might fix their nostalgic anchor point here since it is the only place they can remember growing up, but the older children might not. Perhaps they don't have one. I'll have to ask them about it. All of this was turning in my brain as I drove to the doctor's.

When I got home from the doctor's, Miriam and Hannah were getting ready to take the children to the lake to swim. It was so hot, I decided to go with them. Lyman Lake is about thirty minutes from our house in Lyman Run State Park. It has a sandy beach in an area near the dam that forms the lake. The water was nice, not too cold. Occasionally, bluegill would swim in and nibble on our legs. We played in the water for several hours.

When we got home from the lake, I considered going out to work in the garden, but it was still 91°, so that didn't happen. I took a nap instead. The heat lingered on through the afternoon and squelched all my ambition. So it ended up being a do-nothing day as far as getting any work done, and that's okay. Some summer days should be given up to swimming and napping and taking it easy. That evening our friends Bob and Nancy Jones stopped by Shillig's for a visit. It was nice to sit in the cool of the evening and eat popsicles and chat.

Wednesday was another hot day, but we didn't hit 90° (it reached 88°), so it felt cooler, at least mentally. I spent some time in the morning working in the garden. I tied up bundles of the shallots I'd pulled the day before and hung them to cure in the woodshed. By the time I was done doing that, it was time to escape the heat and take a break. I do not complain about the heat. I want it to be hot. I know it will not last. I suppose if I lived where it was warm all the time and then it got extra hot, I might complain. But I don't, so I don't.

Shallots hanging in the woodshed.
And yes, that's a chipmunk trying to find the birdseed bucket I hid.

Miriam left for work just before 1:00 p.m. and Stacey and Hannah didn't get home from work until 4:15. That meant I had charge of June, Mabel, Florence, and Russell for the interval. The older two pretty much take care of themselves and Florence does okay most of the time. Russell was napping and I might have dozed off too, but just for a moment. I don't know when Russell woke up. He was sleeping upstairs. I was in the kitchen cleaning up lunch when Russell walked in covered in blue magic marker, legs, belly, arms, and face. Ugh. Why did that have to happen on my watch? I put him in the bathtub and tried to scrub it off, but it didn't disappear completely. He got the "We don't draw on our special body" talk. He got it again when Grandma got home.

This was after a bath and considerable scrubbing.

That evening, after dinner, we went to the County Fair. We have a specific fair routine. We don't go for the food or the rides, well, except for taffy. That's usually our last stop, but this time we broke tradition and went to the taffy booth first. Everyone chose a flavor and we moved on, following our usual route. We went through the various exhibit halls to see which quilts, crafts, and vegetables won ribbons.  Then we went through the livestock sheds – sheep and goats, rabbits, cows, pigs, and horses. Then we walked up the fairway, ignoring all the deep-fried delights and unwinnable games offered, and made our way back to the car and headed home. It was a nice evening. We saw lots of people we knew there.

Choosing a taffy.

Checking out the cows.

Inspecting the rabbits.

Watching the horses.

Up the fairway.

Sunset that evening.

The weather changed abruptly during the night on Wednesday as a cold front moved in. By Thursday morning we were in the 50s and it only rose into the 60s through the day. I missed the heat. I had to wear a jacket when I went down to do the morning chores. It felt too much like fall and I'm not ready for that. Later that morning, I took Russell for a haircut. He was looking a bit shaggy and the lady who cuts my hair said she would do it. Russell wasn't entirely on board with it at first, but the promise of a new red Hot Wheels car when it was over convinced him to cooperate. Well almost. There was quite a bit of squirming which affected the outcome – bangs too short, some uneven spots. But hair grows back.

Getting a haircut.

New haircut!

It was rainy all day and I didn't do any work outdoors except the necessary chores. I spent some time watching a few episodes of a historical documentary, Victorian Farm. I love that time period and seeing the way they ran a farm was fascinating. It was an era when technology was changing things as steam engines replaced hard labor, but the main source of power on the farm was still the horse. There is a lot that was good about pre-industrialized, small family farming. It was very hard work. The leisure that came to us after all the labor saving technology hasn't been an entirely good thing. The Amish still do most things the old, hard ways. They believe that life is mostly about work and the good that comes from keeping busy. Leisure is limited and therefore more valuable when it happens. We've flipped that thinking and now we spend too much time playing and entertaining ourselves, I think. If I was younger, I think I'd turn my small farm over to some of the old ways. I'd have a horse drawn plow and mower. Maybe keep a small flock of sheep. Or perhaps in my present state, knowing that it will not happen, I delude myself into romanticizing.

Thursday was Tabor's birthday. He wasn't here to celebrate, but we wished him a happy birthday remotely. Thursday was also Harry Potter's birthday, an event I was unaware of, but not my granddaughters. They love the fact that their father and Harry Potter share the same birthday. Miriam had a Harry Potter day planned for them. They dressed for the occasion. They played Harry Potter games and ate Harry Potter treats at a Harry Potter tea party while listening to soundtrack music from the movies. I read the books once and have watched all the movies several times, but I'm not as big a fan as my granddaughters. I'd like them to be just as enamored with the Little House books. Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday is on February 7th, the same day as their mother's. I think we should do a Little House Day in February.

The Harry Potter Tea Party.

Harry Potter treats (clockwise from the left): Cockroach Clusters, Canary Creams, Chocolate Frogs, and Muggle PB&Js.

August arrived on Friday. I was sad to say good-bye to July. I think I write around this time every year about how August is not one of my favorite months. It marks the decline of summer. The days are noticeably shorter. The growing world now shifts toward a more tired shade of green as the tans and browns of the ripening grass take over. The first of the goldenrod is in bloom already. There will still be summer glories in August. There will be dahlias, zinnias, phlox, and cosmos to make it bright. In the vegetable garden the harvest will pick up its pace as tomatoes and peppers and sweet corn ripen. The early apples are already ripe. But there is a not-so-subtle adjustment in August. The heat, though sometimes extreme (I hope), starts to feel transitory, you know it will not last much longer. I feel the onset of serious end-of-summer sadness.

Zinnias and cosmos.

Fragrant phlox.

It didn't help that Friday was another cool day. It began in the 40s and only warmed to 70° at noon, far too cool for August. But the rain was gone and the sky was clear, so I went out to work. I sowed the bed I'd prepared earlier in the week with late lettuce. I weed-whacked and mowed in the afternoon. Before I mowed, I had Miriam and her work crew, the children, pick up all the fallen apples so I didn't smash them with the mower. We try to keep the apples off the ground to deter unwanted visitors. Back in July, Tabor set up a trail camera in the orchard and we can see the visitors that come in the night. I wouldn't mind it if they just ate the fallen apples, but they eat the leaves and branches of the little trees too. After mowing, I went on weed attack. A day of rain seemed to spark an eruption. Places I'd weeded just a day or two before were filled with them. But that's how August is. The plants sense the end is near and hasten to bloom and set seed. The annual flowers do the same. 

Nighttime visitors in the orchard.

Sweet peas, China asters, and pinks.

Friday, after our usual Pizza-à la-Hannah dinner, we went berry picking. We met Sarah at the U-Pick place down the road. Raspberry season is well underway and blueberry season is waning. We spent an hour picking and sent most of it home with Sarah to be turned into jam.

Russell, Florence, and Sarah picking raspberries.

Russell, Mabel, and Stacey picking blueberries.

Picking blueberries.

Saturday at dawn it was 36°. I shuddered as I looked out and thought that just four degrees colder and we would have had a gardening disaster. We haven't even gotten one ripe tomato or pepper yet. We need August to give us enough heat to ripen things, and I'm growing concerned that it might not happen. After it warmed up a little, I went on a property walk with Florence and Russell. We checked out the flowers and various bugs as we walked. They collected peacock tail feathers. It's that time of year when the peacock sheds his train feathers and they are all over the yard. We ended up at the lily pond where they had to dip feathers in the water and whip them around, of course.

On a morning walk.

Dipping feathers.

Later that morning we went to the Frosty Hollow Herb Fair, out in Sweden Valley. They had so many vendors there this year. We walked around and looked at the crafts and made a few purchases. They had their pizza oven fired up and we had pizzas for lunch.

At the Frosty Hollow Herb Fair.

When we got home, I went to work in the garden. Miriam and Hannah took the children on a salamander walk up to the hollow. On their way back, they picked wildflowers and made crowns. 

Making flower crowns.

Flower crowns.

Sarah and Tosh came over in the evening. Sarah and I picked some things for her to take home – endive, escarole, basil, chard, and shallots. She's going to make a pesto out of the chard and basil. She wants to experiment with the endive and escarole. I told her when I was young, my mother used to make wilted endive with hot, sweet, bacon and vinegar dressing. I've never had escarole before, so I don't know what to do with it. She'll figure something out. If nothing else, we'll know not to grow it again.

It was chilly again this morning. I actually considered turning on the electric heater, but couldn't bring myself to do it. It's August, for pity's sake! We're home from church. Our meetings were good. The day has warmed a little. We've eaten lunch. And now it's time for everyone to take a Sabbath nap.

Rachel and Hazel are coming up tomorrow and will spend the week before all the Thayns go home on Saturday, so the fun will continue. We will also have new arrivals next door as Kurt and Julie's daughter Kohl and her children and our niece Missy and some of her children come for a visit. The cousins will be going nonstop all week. That's what we do in the summertime, when all the world is green.