Tomorrow August begins. I can’t believe it. I also cannot believe the schools around here are having their open houses and in a week or two classes will be in session again. I remember when summers lasted from May to after Labor Day. Three solid months of freedom from classes. That was not to say we didn’t read at my home. We all were readers except for Daddy who spent his days farming and working in a factory. But the rest of us liked to read. Every two weeks we would pile into the car and drive to Hagerstown where there was a wonderful library. There were some older ladies at the front desk and they always welcomed us. My mother would head for the adult section and I would head downstairs to the children’s department where I found a whole new world to explore. During the Summer months the library held a Summer reading program where they kept track of how many books you read. At the end of Summer there were prizes. I don’t remember what those prizes were, but I wanted to win. I could never read as many books as my friend, Mary Jean, read. She was a great reader. She even read from the adult section! I admired her for that. Me, I loved the Mother Westwind stories about different animals, the Oz books, Beverly Clary books, any book about horses or people who owned them and books about historical characters. I read about every book in the children’s department I could until the day I finally moved up to the teen and young adult books. I spent long Summer afternoons swinging on the porch swing and reading. It was heaven to me . I still love getting lost in a good book and have several favorite authors whose books I could read over and over again.

I don’t read as much during the day now. I read before I go to sleep and sometimes when I first wake up. Nowadays I get up, watch some news and then go out to my greenhouse and water the plants inside. I have to water them two times a day because if I don’t, they will dry up and wither. Not going to plant so many flowers in small pots next year. I already have my outside flower garden planned for next year. Zinnias in the back of the border, Rudbeckia(black eyed Susan’s) in front of them, Shasta Daisies next, then Lavender. In front of it all I plan to plant a row of leaf lettuce because I love wilted lettuce salad. I may fit one or two other flowers in there, but that’s my main plan right now. My recipe for wilted lettuce is a whole bunch of leaf lettuce rinsed and dried, place in large bowl. In a skillet fry a few slices of bacon, remove and crumble the bacon, set aside. In bacon grease stir in some diced onions until,tender, then add vinegar, I use white vinegar, brown sugar to make a thin sauce. Pour this while hot over the lettuce and then add the crumbled bacon. Eat immediately. I can eat a whole big bowl of this. I usually make it once or twice if I have enough leaf lettuce. It takes a lot to make this as the lettuce does wilt. Next year I plan on it.

I like being outside as much as possible, playing with the dogs and watering all the gardens planted everywhere, but I also love going into my workshop and sewing. I have been working on nine patch quilts. It’s fun making the little 3 and 1/2 inch blocks. I’ve made hundreds of them,but I thinking I am going to need some more to complete a quilt. I always say I won’t start another quilt until I get some of my other ones done, but I have some quilts in mind I really want to make.

I also want to paint some more barn quilts and David and I have some painting to do on my shop and his shed when it gets a little cooler. David is also going to build a new insulated dog house for Molly and we are moving her to a larger yard for her to play in Now that we are down to one chicken, it doesn’t need as much room so Molly gets that space. I am pretty well done with the chicken business. It was fun, but we are down to this last one and she doesn’t lay any longer so we are running an old age home for her until she goes to the big coop in the sky! I wonder if there are chickens in Heaven? I know there are horses because the Bible mentions them in the last days.Jesus and all his saints will ride in on them one day.

David and I went to see the movie,Twisters, the other day. First movie we have seen in a theater since before the Covid debacle. It was good, but not as good as the original with Helen Hunt and was it Bill Pullman? Is it me or have the movie producers run out of original ideas for movies?. If you have seen a really good movie, mention it in the comments. I don’t like movies with bad language or grisly scenes.

We finally had a pool party a couple of weeks ago. Most of our grandsons were there with their girlfriends and our daughter and son-in-law and our daughter-in-love were there. It was fun to have the pool full for a change. I miss those days when there were children in the pool every day. I babysat for six children one Summer plus our three and it was always noisy and fun. We spent hours in the pool. At that time we had an above ground pool and with that many kids, it was full.

One day when I was sunning myself with a girlfriend, one of our sons came running up screaming that his brother had been hit by a car. I knew they had been out on their bikes. They were pretty responsible so I felt okay with them riding around town and out in the country so this scared me. I think I vaulted over the railing of the pool, ran inside, skidded on my stomach to the phone to call for an ambulance. I had bruises days later! The lady who answered told me they had already been called and were on their way. Leaving our son with my friend’s kids, she drove to the site. I saw someone covered in a blanket and was sure my son was dead, so my friend, who is a nurse, went up to the police who were there and found out he was alive,but had broken bones. It appeared that another teen age boy had driven his car left of center and hit our son. They knew each other. Ii rode to the hospital with him in the ambulance. When we got to the hospital, David was already there! Our son had called him at Camp Atterbury and he raced to the hospital. Our son spent several days in the hospital and the rest of the Summer with a cast on his leg. I am so thankful he was alive and on the mend. He is now in his fifties! How can that be?

This has been a busy Summer, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. As we turn the calendar to a new month,I look forward to enjoying the last few days of Summer and thenit will be Autumn, my very favorite season. Hope you are having a pleasant Summer or Winter in other parts of the world. May you all be blessed with health and happiness inthe months to come. Bye.