Grab Some End Of Summer Fun!
A mid-August panic is once again building in the minds of families across the nation. School break is about to end. The question is: what last-minute excursions can we take with the kids before school begins?
My mind was swirling with possibilities when my six-year-old grandson came into the room, dripping wet from a dip in the pool. Like water streaming off a duck's back, the wood floor beneath him pooled within seconds. My first reaction was to grab a towel, shoo him back out, and proceed to wipe up the water mess. What happened was a slow movement to hand him a towel and usher him back outside. I promised ice-cold root beers and chips to follow.
The hot August was slowly inching by under the toasty Central Oregon sky. I had just made some hamburger patties to put on the outdoor grill for later that evening. Gazing out the window, I watched my grandsons languishing beside the pool, taking an occasional opportunity to slither back into the cool water for another water gun war. The family dog was watching from a shady corner, relieved to remain an observer.
Ah, the dog days of summer…
The thought of school starting up again in just a few weeks made me think about grabbing some last-minute memories with the family. There was plenty of summer fun to be had yet, and time was growing short. Visions of camping trips, trail trekking, and picnics on the shores of a lake began to take shape. Dangling our legs from the dock and dipping our toes in the cool water, telling scary stories from our makeshift tents, and catching fireflies in jars as they glowed in the dark were all summertime memories that I cherished. I grabbed a notepad and began to recollect the fun I had as a kid on the farm.
Stargazing is crazy fun!
It was on one of those warm August nights that my family and I spread blankets out on the lawn. When the last light was turned off, I quickly noticed how incredibly dark it was in the country.
I looked up at the sky, littered with thousands of stars. All of them sparkled brightly and looked like tiny windows into another realm. As I continued to watch in silence, I noticed one dart across the sky. Before long, I saw another one, and another, and on it continued. I had never seen anything so beautiful and so thrilling in all my life. There were a lot of ooohhhs and aaawwws from everyone that evening before our eyes grew heavy with sleep.
Don’t forget lake-life…
Another favorite was spending time on a local lake. We brought a picnic lunch tucked inside an old woven basket that usually consisted of baked chicken, homemade bread, butter from our cows, home-canned pickles, fresh-cut vegetables and fruit from the garden, and some of my mother’s wild blackberry pie. For whatever reason, eating in the great outdoors made everything taste better, and there was hardly any food left over by the end of the day.
Afterward, we did some fishing at the lake. I loved watching my dad open his tackle box, full of brightly colored fishing lures. The greens, blues, oranges, and yellows shimmered in the sunlight. Dad did the grunt work of baiting the hooks and taking the fish off to clean them after the catch. I was cool with that, so I hunkered down on the bank and waited patiently for that first tug on the line.
Foraging for wild blackberries while on a nature walk…
Some of my best summer memories were foraging for wild blackberries. While on a hike, I mentally marked the spots with ripe fruit to pick and continued on my way. Heading back, we’d stop to pick bags of fruit that were often nearly bursting at the seams by the time we were done. It was a chore just to get them home, but the rewards of canned fruit, jam, and pie were so worth it.
My childhood musings were interrupted by the sliding door opening and two inquisitive boys asking me what happened to the root beer and chips. Oh, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer that pull at your brain and tickle your mind with imaginings. Needless to say, the boys dashed back out to the pool while I followed behind with root beer and chips, and a good dose of hugs.
