The warm daze always ends too quickly, so savor every morsel, moment, and…memory.

My favorite season always flies away too fast, like the loons on the lake that arrive with bombastic fanfare after ice-out, and then one day just disappear. Away to warmer climes they go, brilliant water birds that they are.

2021 brought a strange summer indeed. Droughts, wildfires, and an on-again/off-again approach to a pandemic without end. Still, I had a blast—even if I begrudgingly became an empty-nester and felt the usual social gatherings were unusually quiet and some people rather…distant.

• Garden, take me away…

Gardening is one of God’s great BreakAways. And the pandemic sent lots of folks outside, where attention to lawns and plants made a comeback against a more subdued summer pace. I even tried growing tomatoes again. The results were modest, at best; my property needs more sun, even in the summer!

But the lesson in patience was on-point and appropriate. And the prizes? Delicious!

“Only two things that money can’t buy,
That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

~Guy Clark