Recompense

The last days of summer have arrived.  I usually never look forward to the end of summer, but I always watch for those final days.  There is a turning in the air that is just slightly presented. To some, it may be barely noticeable; but the turn is something I have always noted. For me, the end of summer is usually dreaded; other years, like this year, it is mostly welcomed.  This season, however, it does come as somewhat of a surprise to me that I am already welcoming fall and winter.  With all the rain and cool temperatures we had in June and July, it caused a very late start to summer, and when the warm August days finally came, I didn’t think I would ever want them to end.  But my busy schedule and work load, has caused me to think differently.

This year, it certainly hasn’t been the lazy days of summer which one reads about in novels, and for which I always strive.  With me working a new job, my husband’s hand injury, and my son out of town so much of the summer, most of the work load on our acreage fell to me.  I always do the gardening myself, as well as most of the mowing, so that wasn’t unusual; but the haying; fence building and repair; etc., combined with working a new job, almost put me over the top.  Trying to help someone else with their yard work on my days off, left me mostly feeling like I was drowning, fighting to come up for air. With all that has needed to be done, I have simply felt that I have no time for anything. Sometimes it feels nothing is done quite as well as it should be, because there is just too much to do.

I found a bit of recompense when talking with family one day about why I couldn’t attend an event.  My niece commented, “Man!  You work hard!”  I laughed to myself at her comment for the appreciation it seemed to invoke. This niece has always seen things that others often do not. Her discernment from a little girl has more than once brought me untold comfort.  Just a simple observation she cared enough to state, yet it buoyed me with a strength I will always remember.

The other sign that the end of the summer is here, is the county fair.  Yep, it’s come and gone.  Thoroughly enjoyed once again, but a part of summer that is now behind us.  Matt placed with a Grand Champion in his 4-H project, and I took a red and a white on two of my 3 entries.  The rodeo was our highlight, as it is every year. We went twice, both nights spent with good friends that made it even more enjoyable.

We are now busy getting fire wood chopped and stacked; the hay is all baled and safe in the barn.  I continue to water, I continue to mow, but I know those jobs will become less and less frequent the later the season gets, and as we begin transition into the days of fall.

My garden earlier this summer.

My garden will have most of my attention now, though it didn’t produce as in years past; mostly, I believe, because of the wet spring that continued through early summer.  If summer holds a while longer, though, I will have lots of tomatoes, a little corn, and I am praying for my cucumbers!  I will have plenty of potatoes and carrots; and I am sporadically tending to my few green beans.

This summer we didn’t get a chance to go “huckleberryin’”, but summer brought us for the first year, cherries off our tree, and we had lots of raspberries, too.  We lost a cat, but we gained a horse.  No heat wave, no hurricanes or earthquakes, no drought that was so prevalent in so many parts of the country.  Actually, we had mostly beautiful, peaceful days - so much to be thankful for considering other parts of our nation.

As I look back on our summer days that seemed like a whirlwind all our own, I am certainly thankful for all we have been given. And though sometimes I complain, I am quite certain “no time” is better than idle time….just as long as I can come up for air, or land on a “buoy” from time to time.