Summer's Brief Return

Summer returned, only for two days, but we wanted to drink in every minute of the warm air.  The Littles played in soccer games the past two weekends, and we were laughing at how a week ago we were bundled up in blankets and sweaters, drinking hot coffee from a thermos, and begging for just a hint of sun to peek out from behind the blustery clouds; but this past weekend, we were guzzling cold water in shorts and t-shirts, hoping for one small cloud to pass over the sun or for a slight breeze to help cool us off.  In fact, I heard that we broke a temperature record for the month of September. How fickle the weather in our part of the world can be.  We New Englanders have a saying reminding us of how changeable our weather is, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes." We did, however, enjoy the brief return of summer and were thankful for the sunshine.

I started cleaning out some of the flower beds, removing the dead leaves and branches and hauling the refuse away to the compost pile.  Little #4 and #5 learned how to drive the yard tractor (which is really just a lawn mower, but they think the term "tractor" makes it seem so much more cool), and they were thrilled when I asked them to haul the clippings down to the compost pile.  In fact, when I finished up for the day, they wanted to know when I was going to work in the garden again.  Boys and their tractors.  

Since the frost killed most of my colorful annuals, I couldn't resist the beautiful mums sitting outside the local farm store. I chose three for my front garden, but now I wished a bought a few more.  Their colorful faces are so cheerful and welcoming and well worth the three dollars I paid for each.

Hubby cleared away and cut up a tree that had fallen in the yard last week.  One of our beautiful maples had been weakened by a storm that blew through last summer. We thought the damage was only surface since just the bark had split, but insects had burrowed their way in and weakened the tree even more, and it succumbed to the brisk autumn winds we had last week.  Although we were very sad to see the tree fall...it almost seemed part of the family...the wood will be used to help heat the house this winter.

The summer-like temperatures are now gone, and the air if feeling more seasonal, but how nice it was to sit on the porch and feel the warm breezes while sipping iced coffee for one last time.