Alaskan summers are extraordinary! The sun shines late into the night, highlighting different features of nature She wants you to see. The long low light of early morning angles across the lakes and streams with spotlights shining through the tips of waves where dippers drink and dragon flies are born. As the sun rises the fisherman prepare their lures and nets. Fish are jumping and there’s enough for everyone. Share with bears. Watch a mama moose guide her little ones across a stream. Soon berries are ripening. This extraordinary time in Alaska is packed into a short time and it has an urgency about it. Harvest time is pushing around the corner whispering “hurry, hurry”. The fireweed is creeping closer to the top, opening one flower higher every day. Elders say when the fireweed blooms at the top Winter will be here in 6 weeks! Summer sun, almost done in Alaska. Grab it while you can. It’s extraordinary in Ordinary Time.
Summer has always been my favorite time of year. Fresh peaches and watermelon, tomatoes and sweet corn, and the longer days, more relaxed - not weighted down with layers of extra clothes or have to’s. Swimming, floating in a pool or the wonder of feet covered in sand and sea water. Summer is wondrous and rich and full. Loved this post so much.
So true! Summer to me is swimming outside in lakes and ponds -- looking up and seeing mountains in the distance here in the PNW. I live on the Nisqually delta now with a pond -- raised my kids in Seattle within walking distance of Lake Washington, where we were every summer day.
And it means weekend days at the Farmer's Market -- live music and good food to eat and very fresh food to purchase!
It used to mean boating week vacations in the Puget Sound -- aka the Salish Sea -- but we have grown too old to manage a large boat.
“Spring and winter look ahead, autumn looks back, but summer is most at home in the here and now. It asks us to act now or never. It is nature’s extroverted season, seldom subtle!”
I love this! I never thought of summer like this but I will now!
For me the wonders of “Ordinary time” brings camping and lots of it! ( well ok glamping).Being close to nature, admiring the Great Lakes, and family gatherings outdoors. I just came back from a visit with my daughter ( she’s 6 hours away and I hadn’t seen her in 6 months) out at the campground we stayed at near where she lives. Loved sharing meals together, playing games, and just sitting and chatting and being with nature.
In Southern Ontario, July is also hot and humid. Ontario sweet corn doesn’t arrive until early August here, but what does arrive in early July is Ontario Strawberries! It’s a very short season for them maybe 2 weeks.They can be expensive but they are oh so sweet and delicious especially at the fruit and vegetable stands around town. Everything is freshly picked, or you can find a farm on the outskirts that you can pick your own. Because it’s such a short season, people buy them by the flats to either freeze them for year round eating, making Jam or pies. Oh how I miss my mother’s strawberry pie. I tell you they don’t last long in my house!!
Though I don’t get down to it as much as I like, my family has a farm in west-central Illinois and while I love it all times of year, I think I love it most in summer when you can pick the sweet as candy cherry tomatoes right off the vine and swear you’re tasting heaven. The aging, but still wonderful farm cat, Frank lazes in the shade under a chair on the front porch while I sit in the farm house living room with my aunts and uncles, mom, brother, cousins, and wife sipping on cheap beer and laughing the afternoons away. There’s no Grand Canyon in the Midwest, correct, but summer on the farm is an ordinary wonder that leaves me awe-struck every time!
Before I share wonders of Summer I just have say how this post spoke to me. As I have aged I am finding summer not as enjoyable. The heat is not my friend and working in the yard not quite as easy but oh these words from Marvin Hiles made me take another look at Summer..."The Holy is found where it should be, in lived life, not in forever reaching beyond. In summer everything is feeling”. My wonders of Summer is an example of lived life and is so much a feeling ...a feeling of love and being loved.
Wonders of Summer....I just got back from an annual trip to the beach with family..it is group in my family and we call ourselves Tried and True because for 20 years 2 of my nieces, my sister, 3 great nephews, 2 great nieces and I have gathered together. We beach it, we play cards (Uno Flip this year), sing, dance, have a cocktail of the year(the SeaBreeze this year), and always take an evening walk on the beach. We take a picture of our Momma/Nanny with us on the walk. We sit her in the sand that she loved so much. It is such a happy, happy time. It is my favorite wonder of the summer. Your words "May you know “nights that are soft to the touch” and ordinary time that is always and ever full of extraordinary moments." sums up perfectly this time together..moments that are filled with soft touches of love that make ordinary moments turn into extraordinary moments.
Thank you Carrie for this heart-felt Summer post. Hugs.
Thank you Robin, I love the image of the “Tried and True”. What a beautiful name for your beloved. What a joyous gathering. And such extraordinary times!
Omg yes….I grew up a few miles from the Michigan/Indiana line. I remember many summers at the U-pick with my grandmother. We’d go home with blueberries to eat and freeze for the winter…and kind of blue teeth :-). Yum
My wife's grandmother always said that at the U-pick blueberry patch “they only weigh the bucket.” Some berries were just too perfect to not eat immediately.
Sweet corn! On a humid Midwestern day, an evening feast is sweet corn and garden tomatoes (maybe some fresh pepper slices on the side), and, if you have a local grower, fresh peaches! I've been reflecting on how Native people lived and embraced the rhythms and how early settlers, agricultural people, christened this corner of the world a paradise.
Oh yes…that is the quintessential Indiana July dinner…and the peaches are coming on too. But I have to say the very best peaches I ever ate was during a long tour when we stopped by a Georgia roadside farm stand. I remember how the entire band ate fresh peaches leaning over the side of the road because they were so juicy. That experience ended up in a song called “I do not know its name.” Yes, this is a bountiful and abundant area of the country…and we could learn so much about caring, preserving and living in harmony from the first peoples who lived and were so connected to the land.
The annual transformation cycle of crepe myrtle trees in mid-NC is a wonder to me, the way they morph from pruned bare sticks to showy deep pink flames on the end of quickly grown shoots. And July is always a guessing game as to when they will bloom, some years well before the 4th, other years several weeks later. And even when I am in my head, I always hear their colors saying, “stop, now, you have to look.”
It's the first blueberry, and the first cherry tomato. It's the early morning moment that cricketsong morphs into birdsong. It's leaves darkening from chartreuse to deep green. It's early morning coolness, before the heat of the day settles in. It's harvesting garlic and shallots, and laying them out in the barn to cure. The ordinary is really extraordinary, isn't it.
Yes, the garlic is in now…and it’s so beautiful so see them cure, so perfect. And yes, there is nothing like the first blueberry and cherry tomato. Particularly the Sungold yellow ones…which are kind of divas of the tomato world, but so worth growing :-)
Our thimbleberries (AKA as redcaps) are just starting to present edible samples from those shaded plants at the edge of the woods.I find the intense flavor wonderful.(I live near Seattle)...I love learning of your tomatoes ready to drink the air! I hope you can share many more seasons with your canines. DOG is good! We HAVE lived several places where the neighbors proudly offered to share fresh corn (as long as you would agree to first bringing the water to a boil). Lovely to have good neighbors and sharing.
Thimbleberries? I never see them. I’m definitely going to have to google what they look like. It sounds like one of those forest treasures, that you won’t find anywhere but by foraging. Wow. Thank you for post..and yes, a good dog is a treasure in this life.
I live in Memphis, a large urban area surrounded by lots of farmlands & also where community gardens are growing. Going to the Farmers Market on Saturdays is such a thing! The delights are many. There's a reason a fave line for me from 1 of Carrie's songs is "a summer tomato is a cause to rejoice." We have tomatoes in multi colors, all delicious, which frees me to choose them according to cuteness. There's okra & squash, different kinds of peas (which ones today?), green beans. Yum. But over & above all else: PEACHES. Carrie's part of the world may have sweet corn, but we have the peaches. Put them on cereal & ice cream, in pies & cobblers (anyone who's not had a fried peach pie? no words!), on a piece of pound cake (OMG!), or just by themselves. When I'm looking to understand grace, I just think of God giving us peaches! Happy Summer Day y'all!
Oh yes my friend….you are in the land-o-extraordinary-peaches. I love how there are things in each region that are so amazing and true to the land they grow. Yup…peach stands near Memphis must be a beautiful thing right now!
First, I love the passage from Marv Hiles. I, too am fortunate to have “An Almanac of the Soul.” Such wonders within the year-round entries, and much wisdom gained…
When we bought our home in Northern IL in August 36 years ago (in what was then a little country town, and while it’s grown, it’s mostly kept it’s “flavor” and its humble roots) it came with a pretty large vegetable garden that was in full abundance. We moved in with 2 children, ages 4 and 2, and eventually had two more. In those years, when I had lots of eager help 😉, we spent hours in the garden weeding, tying up, harvesting, and even making the most adorable (and huge) scarecrow. There is nothing — nothing — like garden-to-table fruits and vegetables. Anyway, for 2 or 3 years we tried corn. I knew I had to get in at least 2 rows for pollination (usually had 4 rows). There was too much shade in the back yard, so things matured slowly and usually later than normal. The corn probably didn’t get enough pollination or sun, so the ears were small and some of the kernels didn’t develop. But ohhhhh, bringing them in right before dinner and boiling just slightly is still a delectable memory for all of us. We honestly felt like we had touched heaven, and the same could be said for all the other vegetables, but the few years of harvesting corn were simply amazing!
What I love about my neck of the woods in the Midwest is the plethora of lakes and open areas…streams and wildlife and huge shade trees and proximity to Lake Michigan (also close to Wisconsin where I’ve always spent a large portion of my time). Song birds, swans, eagles, herons, turkey vultures, butterflies, turtles, prairies, farms, forest preserves and prairie preserves, myriad domesticated and wild flowers, and the change of seasons all make me a diehard Midwesterner. I attended college at the University of Utah and loved the mountains and took full advantage of living 4 years in that area, always knowing I wanted to come back to the Midwest, where I was born and raised. It’s in the blood, it’s part of my DNA.
I grew up less than a mile from Lake Michigan and that was wonderful, but after marriage and a few moves, we settled further north and about 10 miles west of Lake Michigan. Still get there when I can, but plenty of smaller lakes and waterways in the area where we’ve lived for 36 years.
Alaskan summers are extraordinary! The sun shines late into the night, highlighting different features of nature She wants you to see. The long low light of early morning angles across the lakes and streams with spotlights shining through the tips of waves where dippers drink and dragon flies are born. As the sun rises the fisherman prepare their lures and nets. Fish are jumping and there’s enough for everyone. Share with bears. Watch a mama moose guide her little ones across a stream. Soon berries are ripening. This extraordinary time in Alaska is packed into a short time and it has an urgency about it. Harvest time is pushing around the corner whispering “hurry, hurry”. The fireweed is creeping closer to the top, opening one flower higher every day. Elders say when the fireweed blooms at the top Winter will be here in 6 weeks! Summer sun, almost done in Alaska. Grab it while you can. It’s extraordinary in Ordinary Time.
Love how your words inspire.
Living on the Coast of Maine for the summer is gift . There is a reason the state is Vacationland. Feeling the quiet and the beauty.
From west Michigan...everything you so beautifully penned....along with sunsets and blueberries! Thank you❤️
Summer has always been my favorite time of year. Fresh peaches and watermelon, tomatoes and sweet corn, and the longer days, more relaxed - not weighted down with layers of extra clothes or have to’s. Swimming, floating in a pool or the wonder of feet covered in sand and sea water. Summer is wondrous and rich and full. Loved this post so much.
So true! Summer to me is swimming outside in lakes and ponds -- looking up and seeing mountains in the distance here in the PNW. I live on the Nisqually delta now with a pond -- raised my kids in Seattle within walking distance of Lake Washington, where we were every summer day.
And it means weekend days at the Farmer's Market -- live music and good food to eat and very fresh food to purchase!
It used to mean boating week vacations in the Puget Sound -- aka the Salish Sea -- but we have grown too old to manage a large boat.
“Spring and winter look ahead, autumn looks back, but summer is most at home in the here and now. It asks us to act now or never. It is nature’s extroverted season, seldom subtle!”
I love this! I never thought of summer like this but I will now!
For me the wonders of “Ordinary time” brings camping and lots of it! ( well ok glamping).Being close to nature, admiring the Great Lakes, and family gatherings outdoors. I just came back from a visit with my daughter ( she’s 6 hours away and I hadn’t seen her in 6 months) out at the campground we stayed at near where she lives. Loved sharing meals together, playing games, and just sitting and chatting and being with nature.
In Southern Ontario, July is also hot and humid. Ontario sweet corn doesn’t arrive until early August here, but what does arrive in early July is Ontario Strawberries! It’s a very short season for them maybe 2 weeks.They can be expensive but they are oh so sweet and delicious especially at the fruit and vegetable stands around town. Everything is freshly picked, or you can find a farm on the outskirts that you can pick your own. Because it’s such a short season, people buy them by the flats to either freeze them for year round eating, making Jam or pies. Oh how I miss my mother’s strawberry pie. I tell you they don’t last long in my house!!
Though I don’t get down to it as much as I like, my family has a farm in west-central Illinois and while I love it all times of year, I think I love it most in summer when you can pick the sweet as candy cherry tomatoes right off the vine and swear you’re tasting heaven. The aging, but still wonderful farm cat, Frank lazes in the shade under a chair on the front porch while I sit in the farm house living room with my aunts and uncles, mom, brother, cousins, and wife sipping on cheap beer and laughing the afternoons away. There’s no Grand Canyon in the Midwest, correct, but summer on the farm is an ordinary wonder that leaves me awe-struck every time!
Before I share wonders of Summer I just have say how this post spoke to me. As I have aged I am finding summer not as enjoyable. The heat is not my friend and working in the yard not quite as easy but oh these words from Marvin Hiles made me take another look at Summer..."The Holy is found where it should be, in lived life, not in forever reaching beyond. In summer everything is feeling”. My wonders of Summer is an example of lived life and is so much a feeling ...a feeling of love and being loved.
Wonders of Summer....I just got back from an annual trip to the beach with family..it is group in my family and we call ourselves Tried and True because for 20 years 2 of my nieces, my sister, 3 great nephews, 2 great nieces and I have gathered together. We beach it, we play cards (Uno Flip this year), sing, dance, have a cocktail of the year(the SeaBreeze this year), and always take an evening walk on the beach. We take a picture of our Momma/Nanny with us on the walk. We sit her in the sand that she loved so much. It is such a happy, happy time. It is my favorite wonder of the summer. Your words "May you know “nights that are soft to the touch” and ordinary time that is always and ever full of extraordinary moments." sums up perfectly this time together..moments that are filled with soft touches of love that make ordinary moments turn into extraordinary moments.
Thank you Carrie for this heart-felt Summer post. Hugs.
Thank you Robin, I love the image of the “Tried and True”. What a beautiful name for your beloved. What a joyous gathering. And such extraordinary times!
Michigan blueberries!
Omg yes….I grew up a few miles from the Michigan/Indiana line. I remember many summers at the U-pick with my grandmother. We’d go home with blueberries to eat and freeze for the winter…and kind of blue teeth :-). Yum
My wife's grandmother always said that at the U-pick blueberry patch “they only weigh the bucket.” Some berries were just too perfect to not eat immediately.
Sweet corn! On a humid Midwestern day, an evening feast is sweet corn and garden tomatoes (maybe some fresh pepper slices on the side), and, if you have a local grower, fresh peaches! I've been reflecting on how Native people lived and embraced the rhythms and how early settlers, agricultural people, christened this corner of the world a paradise.
Oh yes…that is the quintessential Indiana July dinner…and the peaches are coming on too. But I have to say the very best peaches I ever ate was during a long tour when we stopped by a Georgia roadside farm stand. I remember how the entire band ate fresh peaches leaning over the side of the road because they were so juicy. That experience ended up in a song called “I do not know its name.” Yes, this is a bountiful and abundant area of the country…and we could learn so much about caring, preserving and living in harmony from the first peoples who lived and were so connected to the land.
The annual transformation cycle of crepe myrtle trees in mid-NC is a wonder to me, the way they morph from pruned bare sticks to showy deep pink flames on the end of quickly grown shoots. And July is always a guessing game as to when they will bloom, some years well before the 4th, other years several weeks later. And even when I am in my head, I always hear their colors saying, “stop, now, you have to look.”
Oh yes…colors will do that…”pay attention, have a look, and be with wonder.”
It's the first blueberry, and the first cherry tomato. It's the early morning moment that cricketsong morphs into birdsong. It's leaves darkening from chartreuse to deep green. It's early morning coolness, before the heat of the day settles in. It's harvesting garlic and shallots, and laying them out in the barn to cure. The ordinary is really extraordinary, isn't it.
Yes, the garlic is in now…and it’s so beautiful so see them cure, so perfect. And yes, there is nothing like the first blueberry and cherry tomato. Particularly the Sungold yellow ones…which are kind of divas of the tomato world, but so worth growing :-)
I have sungolds, too, and also sweet 100's and San Marzanos.
Our thimbleberries (AKA as redcaps) are just starting to present edible samples from those shaded plants at the edge of the woods.I find the intense flavor wonderful.(I live near Seattle)...I love learning of your tomatoes ready to drink the air! I hope you can share many more seasons with your canines. DOG is good! We HAVE lived several places where the neighbors proudly offered to share fresh corn (as long as you would agree to first bringing the water to a boil). Lovely to have good neighbors and sharing.
Thimbleberries? I never see them. I’m definitely going to have to google what they look like. It sounds like one of those forest treasures, that you won’t find anywhere but by foraging. Wow. Thank you for post..and yes, a good dog is a treasure in this life.
I live in Memphis, a large urban area surrounded by lots of farmlands & also where community gardens are growing. Going to the Farmers Market on Saturdays is such a thing! The delights are many. There's a reason a fave line for me from 1 of Carrie's songs is "a summer tomato is a cause to rejoice." We have tomatoes in multi colors, all delicious, which frees me to choose them according to cuteness. There's okra & squash, different kinds of peas (which ones today?), green beans. Yum. But over & above all else: PEACHES. Carrie's part of the world may have sweet corn, but we have the peaches. Put them on cereal & ice cream, in pies & cobblers (anyone who's not had a fried peach pie? no words!), on a piece of pound cake (OMG!), or just by themselves. When I'm looking to understand grace, I just think of God giving us peaches! Happy Summer Day y'all!
Oh yes my friend….you are in the land-o-extraordinary-peaches. I love how there are things in each region that are so amazing and true to the land they grow. Yup…peach stands near Memphis must be a beautiful thing right now!
First, I love the passage from Marv Hiles. I, too am fortunate to have “An Almanac of the Soul.” Such wonders within the year-round entries, and much wisdom gained…
When we bought our home in Northern IL in August 36 years ago (in what was then a little country town, and while it’s grown, it’s mostly kept it’s “flavor” and its humble roots) it came with a pretty large vegetable garden that was in full abundance. We moved in with 2 children, ages 4 and 2, and eventually had two more. In those years, when I had lots of eager help 😉, we spent hours in the garden weeding, tying up, harvesting, and even making the most adorable (and huge) scarecrow. There is nothing — nothing — like garden-to-table fruits and vegetables. Anyway, for 2 or 3 years we tried corn. I knew I had to get in at least 2 rows for pollination (usually had 4 rows). There was too much shade in the back yard, so things matured slowly and usually later than normal. The corn probably didn’t get enough pollination or sun, so the ears were small and some of the kernels didn’t develop. But ohhhhh, bringing them in right before dinner and boiling just slightly is still a delectable memory for all of us. We honestly felt like we had touched heaven, and the same could be said for all the other vegetables, but the few years of harvesting corn were simply amazing!
What I love about my neck of the woods in the Midwest is the plethora of lakes and open areas…streams and wildlife and huge shade trees and proximity to Lake Michigan (also close to Wisconsin where I’ve always spent a large portion of my time). Song birds, swans, eagles, herons, turkey vultures, butterflies, turtles, prairies, farms, forest preserves and prairie preserves, myriad domesticated and wild flowers, and the change of seasons all make me a diehard Midwesterner. I attended college at the University of Utah and loved the mountains and took full advantage of living 4 years in that area, always knowing I wanted to come back to the Midwest, where I was born and raised. It’s in the blood, it’s part of my DNA.
Oh yes…I love that area near the Lake…it is a very special eco-region. So wonderful you can call it home—and that you appreciate it so deeply.
I grew up less than a mile from Lake Michigan and that was wonderful, but after marriage and a few moves, we settled further north and about 10 miles west of Lake Michigan. Still get there when I can, but plenty of smaller lakes and waterways in the area where we’ve lived for 36 years.
I love sweet corn so much I reserve it for dessert at a meal. I love the typo in your question. I think of ‘life’ not as a noun but a verb!
Oh yes…corn for dessert. I get that!