Everything I love about summer is everything that makes me long for autumn days turning to winter.

The long sunny days.  The warm nights.  The crickets chirping peacefully in the evenings after the little ones have gone to bed.

But the long hours of daylight mean so much work to be done in our short summer season.  And the warm evenings are ones in which I sit outside, my fingers tapping away at the keyboard while my eyes scan the fields for my farmer husband, coming home from long hours of work.

Growing things.  The smell of fresh-cut alfalfa hay.  Tractor rides.  Abundant garden produce.

But it’s too hot to cook or to can.  The tractor rides mean he’s working day and night to get it all done.  And each cutting of hay has us watching the clouds and praying away the rain as the pressure mounts to get it all baled in time.

Sometimes it seems the summer days fly by and it’s already dusk and we didn’t get it all done.  Sometimes they are hot and sticky and endless and crawl as slowly as the turtle from the irrigation pond that the girls’ daddy brought home to show them.

Like they say of the days of motherhood, ‘tis true of summer as well: the days are long but the months are short.  And soon, it will be wintertime again, with two feet of snow and ice cold and we’ll be looking forward anew to all the warmth and busyness of summer.

So I sit and I slow and I appreciate the seasons.  Because even the turtle seems to pass by too quickly for those who truly appreciate it.