Summer Bounty

"He chooses our inheritance for us..." Psalm 47:4

It doesn't seem like we've had enough summer. And here it is, harvest time already. The tomatoes are red and fragrant on the vine. Green, purple and jalapeno peppers are everywhere. And the sweet corn! Oh the sweet corn is magnificent. As far as I'm concerned, summer is the best time of the year.

Bernie bought a red scooter to drive back and forth to work. On fresh sunny Sunday afternoons we ride out to tour the countryside and learn some of the back roads in our newer territory. We marvel at how different things look on a scooter than they do in a car or walking or even on a bicycle. The scents are heady and concentrated. There is the grassy warmth of newly mown hay and the intense aroma of lilies blooming in orange richness in the ditches. Farming has changed dramatically in the past 40 years with the result that there is less livestock on family farms. I miss the earthy smell of animals on our afternoon scooter rides.

As a child when I would go out into the pasture to round up the cattle for milking, I'd saunter down the lane, past the cowyard, and smell the pungent aroma of future fertilizer. A farm child learns to distinguish the difference between the smell of cattle, hogs, horses, or chickens. There was also the unmistakable oily smell of bats who had hijacked the upper regions of the house. I miss the farm smells - and I miss the trill of the meadowlark in the fields where I laid in the grass making cloud pictures or as I strolled down the road on my way to the corner creek. Yes, I greatly miss the meadowlark - yet everytime I am blessed enough to hear one, I always thank God for the pleasure of hearing one again.

Diane Ackerman, in her book A Natural History of the Senses says, "One of the real tests of writers, especially poets, is how well they write about smells." I believe it! It is uncannily tough to put words to what is passing through your nose and into your heart. It seems that an aroma has the ability to penetrate the heart so as to leave a lasting impression of place and time forever imprinted in our brains. Smell that smell again, and you are instantly transported to a special moment in your personal history. I am going to work at learning how to put words to scents that waft around me. This will be my new challenge for this season.

Graphic made using tutorial by Sandy at DaBratz Designs Membership