““As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”” Genesis 8:22 NIV

After meeting a group of friends for lunch yesterday, I was leaving the restaurant when a gentleman seated with his wife in a nearby booth stopped me. He said he couldn’t help but overhear me talking about the storm I heard during the night. He wanted to tell me they had been driving home to Ravenswood and got caught in the storm. He claimed it was the worst storm he had ever driven in but in ten miles, it was gone. Storms here are either small, isolated pockets…or weeks-long, grey deluges, it seems. There is no in between. Anyway, I told him my dad was from Ravenswood. His wife kept saying “You look SO familiar to me!” I sat down with them and we connected the dots until, indeed…we found the common denominator. They thought my dad’s name was familiar but couldn’t quite place him until I showed them his photo on my phone. Then they remembered him quite well. This guy’s grandfather’s property bordered that of my Aunt Marge. My cousin Donna was his nurse when he had surgery a couple of years ago. It is a teeny, tiny little world here and you have to be darned careful what you say about folks. We’re all related!

After lunch, Mr. FixIt and I went to the farm to mow. We are in the last bit of the Dog Days of Summer…a period of 40 days from July 3rd to August 11th. This period coincides with the rising of the Dog Star…Sirius…at dawn. The Dog Star doesn’t determine our weather, but the Ancient Egyptians used this celestial event to predict the annual flooding of the Nile River. It does coincide with some of the hottest, most sultry weather of the summer. 

When I was growing up, my grandma used to warn us that dogs “go rabid” at this time of year and you’d best avoid any contact. I was scared to death of dogs growing up. We had a little beagle for a short while when I was quite young…3 or 4 maybe. We called her Honey. One day she was gone and I never knew what happened. I expect my Mom, who was NOT an animal lover, made short work of finding Honey a better place to live.

My aunt had an Irish Setter. A beautiful dog with long, silky red hair and a brain the size of a golf ball. I remember running up the sidewalk to see my aunt and this monster dashed out from behind her and jumped up on me…knocking me down. I’m not sure who screamed louder…me or my mom. After that, I kept my distance from dogs. This was only further cemented when Atticus shot and killed that rabid dog in “To Kill a Mockingbird”…no doubt during the Dog Days of Summer. I was firmly convinced I would be mangled by some rabid beast and have to get a million shots in my belly button. No, thank you.

Even though we have many hot and sultry days ahead of us after the official end of Dog Days, it marks an end of something. The long, lazy days of summer are coming to a close with the start of a new school year. The trees and bushes have that tired, yellowish green tone now. Leaves are already falling here and there. The big cherry tree behind the farmhouse is bare, save for a few hangers on…yellow leaves with black spots. I thought the grass was going to go dormant, but we have had a good deal of rain the last two weeks and we’ve mowed like crazy at both the farm and the Ponderosa. I was just telling Mr. FixIt as we drove out to the farm yesterday, we have so many things we need to do and can’t till the mowing is done. We are working so hard now, there’s no way to add much else.

When the grass was cut at the farm, I walked around and caught some pictures. The elderberries are ripening and the birds are clearly after them. The pinkish-purple Rose of Sharon are in full bloom, as are the ginormous Hydrangeas. I’ve never seenu Hydrangea bush as big as the one is in the backyard at the farm. It’s a good 12-15 feet high and just as wide across.

It was another beautiful, hot, sultry summer day. They will be gone all too soon and we’ll be back to the gray, wet, cold West Virginia winter. I’ll take these sticky hot days any day of the week if it means I have green to look at. I hope you have a happy Friday and you are looking forward to a fun weekend full of love and laughter and sunshine. ❤️