Summertime, you just don't know

[Phalon]

Season Du Jour - Summer.

Spring is on the way out the door - can't really tell here by the temperature yet - but the kids are out of school soon, the tourists are flooding the shops, beaches, (sitting around in jackets), and the especially the roads. The harbor; vacant for so many months, is filled with boats again - oops excuse me - yachts - except for those of us cruising around in dinghies without names. Yeah, still trying to convince Hubs to let me paint "Warrior Princess" on ours.

I love summer. Actually, I love all the seasons, (spring being my least favorite, I suppose, and glad it's almost through). I live in a place with four distinct seasons, and wouldn't want it any other way.

Realizing that not all of us here do, but what are your most favorite distinctly summertime things to do?








[Edit]

I merged two Summer threads, and this is the first post in the first thread, titled as "Hot Stuff: Donna Summertime Activities". The title of the second thread was kept in the merge, which is: "Summertime, you just don't know". ~*~ Joxcee ~*~

[/Edit]

[Grrlpower]

Making suntea on the back porch at my gramma's house. Some of the best memories are sitting there with here waiting for the sun to brew our tea.

I love the beach and sand and all it has to offer...Playing football or frisby and building sandcastles are some things I just love to do.

Phalon you have me thinking now of all the stuff I used to do with my kiddos in the summertime to keep them busy. Popsicles in the wading pool with a hose to wash off with afterwards was always a fun favorite.

[Phalon]

Ooo - summertime when we were a kids. That was the best, wasn't it? It seemed to last forevaaa - out the door at the break of day, and home only for lunch and dinner. Slip n' Slides, running through the sprinkler, bike adventures on the trails down at "The Field", (about four acres of vacant land encompassing not only a field, but creek and woods too; simply known as The Field - capitalized for emphasis - as opposed to The Creek - which was on the other side of the block and the place for catching frogs). Flash light tag and catching fireflies at night.

BP asked me the other day; and about everyday for the last month when we were going to catch fireflies again. Too early, I tell her. It's not warm enough for them to be out yet. Same conversation everyday, and hurry up and hatch you little buggers, hatch!

Fireflies or Lightening Bugs? We called them lightening bugs as kids because that's what Dad called them. I wonder if it is a regional thing - the name used?

[Grrlpower]

Ohh flashlight in a bottle...What a cool experience to be able to share with your kiddos. All I know about fireflies is that it is easier to catch them if you hold the bottle upside down because they fly up...Z says where she is from they call them lightening bugs as well.

My neighbor is in the process of educating us on the cycles of a butterflies life. Right now the little catapillars are eating and then cocooning themselves on the leaves of the tree...She shows us the difference from each species of butterfly. She is very excited about it and her kids are bored cause they know all about the process due to mom. So I am trying to make mom's face light up by getting the kids to explain the process to me. She is amazed when she sees that they were paying attention. Plus kids love to think they can teach an adult something.

It is cool how you can see natures miracles and wonder everywhere if you just know where to look. I'm so glad BP understands that...You are doing a great job as a mother and a teacher Phalon

[Phalon]

Cool deal about the butterflies, GP. I have a "birds and butterfly" garden in my Children's Garden at work. A really neat place, and I should write about it sometime. A ton of work to do in it after winter, and dang, not finding the time right now.

No time to write either - sleepy and I've got to get myself out of here.

Memorial Day weekend - typically the start of summertime here; tourist season.

Out of state plates everywhere. Glad I can walk anywhere in town; another of my favorite activities - walking - not just in summertime, though it is different then winter - not better; just different. Easier, I guess.

[marysgurl1]

Lightening bugs as well in my neck of the woods, but I guess Hubs already confirmed that....

First outing of the season to the drive-in this weekend!! The girls have never, ever been to one, so we are looking forward to the new adventure with them. We have one that actually still has a "kiddie area" with swings & such & we still have some spots where you can use the "hanging on your window" speaker instead of tuning the radio! ILB & I are both excited---gonna surprise the girls...so they don't know yet...probably part of our excitement....

Lets see....cooler (not filled with brewskies this time--well, maybe one each) lawn chairs, air mattress for the back of my truck (love cuddling under the stars)....what else....??

[Scrappy Amazon]

Dang you guys are making me all nostalgic.

My grandpa had a 40 acre farm in southern Indiana when I was a kid. Everyday was a new adventure. Trees to climb. Frogs and crawdads to catch. OH! And those pretty little green garder snakes. Lightnening bugs, Butterflies, and those brown and black fuzzy caterpillers.

Playing in the creek and feeding the ducks in the pond. Me and my dog Rusty. Who was a bear hunter you know. All 20 pounds of him.

Swinging from the "tarzan tree", and building forts in the woods.

Dang...what wonderful memories. Thanks ladies.

[katina2nd]

Boy i'm gettin' all teary eyed remembering [ just ] my long lost youth.
Best thing for me now in summer is sitting in front of the air conditioner watching cricket on the tele.

Watcha gonna see at the drive in Gp?

[marysgurl1]

katina2nd said:

Watcha gonna see at the drive in Gp?

That would be "MG", big guy ....& it's Will Farrell--"Kicking & Screaming" & "Madagascar"--two geared more toward the kiddos, but who cares....all about the experience anyway. Besides, I'm thinking snuggling under the stars in the back of my pick-up, remember?? LOL....sounds like a bad country song.....

[Grrlpower]

Sounds like a CMA award winner there Q...The video is sure to be a classic, at least with me. I have heard that both movies are to be funny...If we had a drive in around these parts I am sure we would attend. No truck but a nice reclining seats...As for anything you are forgetting...BUG SPRAY! Those skeeters will carry you away. They have those bracelets out now that are supposed to work. No confirmation from me but an option. If you try them and they do let me know. I am a walking smorgesborg.

So you sit and watch cricket Kat? I have never understood it due to the fact I have never seen it played first hand. Maybe there is a team out there that can use a waterboy...My motto is if you can't play help out those who can.

I am envious when I hear you all speak of your green childhoods. I was a city kid and my run ins with nature were few and far between...But my gramps did have a pool was drained due to a misfortunate drowning and there were tadpoles in the mirky leftovers of the deep end. I remember walking down into the concrete pond and watching the buggers for hours.

[katina2nd]

"That would be "MG", big guy ..."

Whoops, sorry bout that, got my MG's mixed up with my GP's there.


"& it's Will Farrell--"Kicking & Screaming" & "Madagascar"--two geared more toward the kiddos, but who cares....all about the experience anyway. Besides, I'm thinking snuggling under the stars in the back of my pick-up, remember?? LOL....sounds like a bad country song....."

Ummm, fraid I don't know anything about those two films.
Do I remember snuggling under the stars? Not sure my memory stretches that far back into the dim dark recesses of time, although I do seem to have vague recollections in my more lucid moments.

Have a great time.






"So you sit and watch cricket Kat? I have never understood it due to the fact I have never seen it played first hand. Maybe there is a team out there that can use a waterboy...My motto is if you can't play help out those who can."

Yep, become a bit of a couch potato during the cricket season i'm afraid.
I'd try explaining it to you, but don't have a couple of days to spare unfortunatly.

I'll make some inquiries for you regarding the waterboy job, i'm sure we can come up with something.

[Grrlpower]

KAT: The closest I come to being a waterboy is when I spill my drink on the dance floor at the local club... Oh I crack myself up!

[marysgurl1]

Well, we messed up....got the back of the pick-up all loaded to the brim...cooler, chairs, blankets, & yes GP, bug spray...traveled the 20 minutes to the drive-in & alas, we pull in & the dang thing is full!! Both screens!! I wish you could've seen the look on everyones face!! I had no idea....the last time I went to the drive-in, there were maybe 20 cars there. It was so cool seeing the place packed like that...maybe an American tradition is making a comeback!!

So....we went to Polly's Freeze...a little country ice cream place that is always packed because they have the best menu for anything deep-fried you can imagine...mushrooms, fries, real onion rings, etc....& then the desserts...the best homemade soft serve yogurt in the universe!! Different flavor every month....last night it was grape!! We had a picnic table under the stars & everyone got their tummies full of junk & ice cream, the girls ran around for a while & then we rented movies on the way home. All in all the evening was a success!!

Will try the drive-in again next weekend....only about an hour earlier!!

[Grrlpower]

Sorry you missed th drive in but with it that full it isn't as fun anyway. Too many noises to contend with.
I guess you have that magnetism everyone talks about...alot of us do. When you walk in the store that is empty and within 10 minutes the place is packed. Everyone must have heard you were going and had to join ya.

[Gabbin]

Ah, drive-ins. They used to show B Movies at ours. It is gone, now. A moment of silence for it.....

I posted in Clown before seeing this one. For me it is camping, hiking and biking....gardening and mowing the lawn. WAhsing cars and such. I like swinging in the hammock and reading books. I hope I can do that this summer.

[buttcheeks]

I like fireflies. Although they are misnamed as June bugs but are around thru August.


I love popsicles: blueberry, bananna, vanilla, rootbeer and cherry oh and grape.

Walking in the grass in my bare feet.

[Phalon]

We always called those big, fat brownish-bronze beetles June Bugs. Stupid; flying into things and getting stuck upsidedown without being able to right themselves like turtles on their backs.

Lightening bugs as well in my neck of the woods, but I guess Hubs already confirmed that....

Actually, Marysgurl, Hubs calls them fireflies. Or, way back before he lost most of that Southern drawl, "furflies". "Look at the furfly", and I thought he was talking about a cat-fight. PETA heard too, and doused their little coats with florescent green paint, and that is why they now light up at night.

And that is the story of how they came to glow; or the entomologist of it anyway.

Fishflies - now there is an icky bug. Oooo, and cicadas - what they lack in looks, they make up for in music.

Barefeet in cool dewy grass in the morning is the best.

[Scrappy Amazon]

I agree about the grass...all dewey between your toes...and the way it smells.....love it.

[Phalon]

The smell of worms after it rains; the air still cool, and not the baked on the sidewalk smell.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? For as long as I can remember to me the air smells like worms after a rain. No one has ever gotten this. "It's the dirt that you're smelling." No, it's worms. A specific scent that only happens after a rain and when the worms are out crawling on the sidewalk.

[marysgurl1]

P....have you been sampling mushrooms on the trail again?? LOL Seriously, if I have experienced this phenomenon, I wasn't aware...but you can rest assured I will be paying attention next time!

I use to go out after those rains when I was a kid & move every single one I could so they wouldn't get stepped on or dry out before they could find their way....how bad is that??

[Phalon]

I am sure, Marysgurl, you've ensured many a worm and long and happy life. Ironically, I recently read, (really. BOLL), that worms can live for up to twenty years. Think about that the next time your child wants to bring home stray worm and keep it for a pet. Years and years of feeding it, walking it, and cleaning up after it. And when they move out and go to college? Whose pet does it become then?

[marysgurl1]

I can contribute here.....

When I was a kid, my dad was a commercial fisherman in north/central Florida. That's back when there was still that kind of fishing to be done there. We raised our own worms. It was like a hobby to my dad, but I hated the worm house....it always spooked me with it's damp humidness & low-hanging dimly-burning lightbulbs swaying slowly above the long musty-smelling tables...yuck! I imagined myself sprinkling arsenic over those long tables rather than the corn meal I was given to feed them late in the evenings as the sun was setting.....

Ironic I still sweep off the sidewalk & back porch after a good rain to this day.....

[Phalon]

Then you must...you have to know this worm smell. Yes, yes...a damp, humid, musty earthy smell, (which is not dirt or the wet earth).

And yeah...that would make my skin crawl also - feeding the worms in a low lit confined space. Sounds like the setting from some kind of horror movie.

[Grrlpower]

Worm house...now that definately makes me think mudpies...whoohoo with kiddos love mudpies...ground up oreo cookies in a small flower pot with gummy worms in it. The kiddo thought it was the coolest to try and gross everyone else out. Digging through her pot and consuming her treats.

[marysgurl1]

phalon said:

And yeah...that would make my skin crawl also - feeding the worms in a low lit confined space. Sounds like the setting from some kind of horror movie.

There is one....the worms become gigantic flesh-eaters after a lightening bolt pierces the ground during a storm.....or something like that...

I like your worms better, gp!!

[Grrlpower]

Now that makes me think of tremors...Kevin bacon running his bum off and being as light on his feet as he can be as not to alert the critter...

[Joxcenia]

I think I know that smell Phalon.... sometimes after a rain there is a weird smell, but I always called it a "fishy" smell... like being on a fishing pier. Maybe because there are worm shops on fishing piers... I told my mom Saturday the rain left a fishy smell, and she thought I was crazy.

[Grrlpower]

Out here we get that fishy smell after driving over the lake bridges. I thought it was residual smell from the fish, like skunks leave a scent in the air...never living near water other then the ocean how was I to know. I was grossed out to learn that it is the mosquitos that are feasting on the lake critters then splatting onto the front of the car. GROSS.

[Joxcenia]

[Phalon]

Yep, Joxie...I'm sure your fishy smell after a rain and the worm smell are one and the same.

Another summertime thing I love: small town festivals. Small towns will find any reason at all to have a festival. In neighboring towns there are festivals celebrating pancakes, apples, strawberries, cherries and geese.

Our town's biggest two are the Blueberry Festival, and this weekend's: Harbor Fest.

Concert tonight at the marina was a couple of bands playing Motown. Packed up a couple of blankets, (it was cold), a cooler and BP in the wagon, and we walked down and grabbed a spot on the lawn. Great music, and LX, BP and I huddled under the blanket, harmonizing, (if that is possible); complete with hand motions, to Hubs. Met a bunch of friends down there - you always see everyone you know at small town festivals - and at various times had quite the crowd on our blanket.

Tomorrow: Dragon Boat races down the channel.

And tomorrow night's band is one with the guy who runs the local music camp for kids, and the keyboardist from the Rolling Stones. Should be a good one.