Songbird asks about summer. Five things to like or not.
Summer in Memphis is different from summer in Cleveland. Summer in Cleveland is something to look forward to. Sun and warmth after months of clouds and cold, cold, cold. Summer in Memphis is something to dread. Heat and humidity and more heat and humidity. Four to five months of temperatures and humidity too high to do anything after 7:30 in the morning. And this is the first year since I've moved to Memphis that I've spent the entire summer here.
1. Summer vacation. I'm not taking one this year. Summer was the great release from school when I was a child. Time to do anything or nothing. We never traveled much, though my dad for a few years went to a medical meeting in Morehead City. We'd rent a house in Atlantic City near the ocean. Summer meant camp. I'd go to Camp Grier for a week. Camp Grier was our Presbytery's camp in the mountains. Even though I lived fairly near to Montreat, the great Presbyterian Center in the NC mountains, because of the camp, we almost never went there. I think I went there twice as a child. I'd get to spend time with relatives in the mountains. One aunt had a house in Blowing Rock and another lived in Sparta.
2. Lots of sunshine. Cleveland winters were mostly gray. I think we could go 100 or more days with NO sunshine. So summer sunshine was something to treasure. Lots of time to be outside.
3. Respite from garden chores. In Cleveland, Mother's Day was the beginning of the time to put in annuals. I'd spend weekend days from April through May trying to get the gardens around the house shaped up. By the time summer finally arrived, all I needed to do was occasional weeding and then, enjoy the gardens.
Can't think of anything else.
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9 comments:
Living in Chicago I always used mothers day as the marker for my plantings too....and I am so with you on the humidity...ick.
It's hard for me to believe anyone can live in Memphis or those other places with hot, humid summers. Then again I know the native Tennesseeans have trouble believing we Northerners aren't crazy for living through cold, snowy winters. I hope you find some things to enjoy about your Memphis summer! (Sweet tea? Peaches?)
I may change my tune someday, but right now I am looking forward to some hot humid southern summers in my future.....
As a transplanted Yankee now in Tennessee, I've endured the wretched summers and the cold winters. I'll take winter any day. Bring on the snow!
I still haven't adjusted to the planting/growing season here.
Here in mid-Michigan the weather is so dicey...I am trying to create a three-season garden, but whenever I follow the experts' planting guides and plant earlier in the spring than Memorial Day weekend...Bad Things Happen.
Memphis must be very humid. I understand you dreading the summers there; I dread them in south TX, too.
In the South, summer air feels like a wall, doesn't it?
I grew up in Youngstown, OH. Were'nt those NE Ohio winters bleak! That's why summer was SO important!
Guess Memphis is out for me!
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