As is usual for me this time of year I find myself looking forward to fall but I will miss the delightfully soothing mornings and evenings of summer---and even the lazy hot afternoons where you can sit outside for just a few minutes and listen to the bees buzz as you soak up the sun and you can feel the heat clear down to the inside of your bones...

 I really find peace and contentment in watering my gardens--and even weeding--in the coolness of a summer morning. I love to give the plants some renewing water and like to imagine them happily soaking their roots in it as the day heats up.

The butterfly bush has beautiful purple plumes right now, the impatiens are delicately and colorfully beautiful, and there is a fluffy white and purple carpet of allysum beneath the rose bushes that have caught their second wind.

Sometimes I have such a feeling of love and appreciation for the simple beauty of my garden that it overflows my heart and I want to hug all of the plants and thank them for living and growing and blooming and making my yard pretty---Really---it's true. There have been occasions when I have been out in broad daylight in the view of several other houses kind of 'petting' the leaves of my plants and softly saying 'thank you'. I have refrained from all out hugging because I don't want to give my neighbors any more cause for concern.  I guess you could say my flower gardens make me want to cry---thankfully this year---in a good way.

Those summer nights (except for warm sticky ones--I'm not a fan of those)...  they bring such a sigh of relief from the heat. It is great to go for walks on summer evenings beneath the 'starry dome of heaven' with a musical background of crickets. The nights seem to carry echoes of children playing and a faint smell of Popsicles--- leftover from earlier in the day---a time that seems so far away---a sweet breathing out after a long hot afternoon...

The other morning I felt a faint whisper of fall in the air. You know how when someone whispers in your ear it kind of tickles and feels soft and gentle against your skin---that's what it was like only it was the breeze that carried a whisper.

The older I get the faster time goes by...it can be a frustrating feeling like following a fly with your eyes and waiting for it to land and trying not to move or breathe or blink so that you can get it before it feels you coming. And the faster time goes by the more I find myself wanting to hold on tighter to moments---seasons---feelings---people. Normally this time of year I find myself weary of summer and eager to move on. I did mention to my daughter just today how I am tired of summer and of  being hot but my heart is holding onto the good things more and more...

I have had the experience several times of having a large portion of something sweet and rich placed before me and expressing my doubts about ever being able to finish it but then the next thing I know there I am finishing up the last few bites---it's gone! That's the way it is with time.

Enjoy these last few flavorful bites of summer!

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.
~Emily Dickinson