So, with apologies to Greta, who is
just entering winter in Australia,here are my Top Five Reasons to Love Summer,
followed by a few things that can ruin your season in the sun.
1) Warm weather and sunshine. There are plenty
of folks here in the South who start complaining of the heat in late spring.
Not me. I love being able to go out in the morning with just a tee-shirt,
knowing I won’t be shivering. Granted, with climate change, even in the
mountains, we’ve had high temps already, but I’d rather suffer ninety degrees
than freeze my nose off.
2) Birds, birds, birds. In Disney’s BAMBI, the
wise old owl complains that the birds are all “twitter-pated” at this time of
year, finding mates, building nests and singing their little hearts out. They
are certainly living up to that description around my house. The hummingbirds
are making do with my feeder while waiting for the four o’clocks to bloom. And
the hawks and owls trade shifts to give the bunnies the willies.
3) Festivals and cons. Marshall offers the
fantastically creative Mermaid Festival in June, transforming the town for an
entire day into a haven for ocean creatures, pirates, ladies of the sea and
marvelous inventions of all sorts and culminating in a parade down Main Street. I’m
participating in the first annual Spruce Pine Alien Conference and EXPO the
next county over (near Brown Mountain, site of many UFO sightings) later in
June. In July, the 41st annual Shore Leave STAR TREK convention
welcomes Nichelle Nichols and Anson Mount as guests, and I’m once again participating
in the authors’ panels.
4) Lazy afternoons/evenings on the screened porch.
I admit I haven’t had a lot of time for these yet. But they are among my favorite
parts of summer. Afternoons with a book and a glass of iced tea. Evenings with
friends and an adult libation while the air gets cool and the coyotes have
their little parties. Aahh!
5) Fireworks on the Fourth of July. The little
brewpub in our town has a deck overlooking the French Broad River. Last year
the town fathers in their wisdom moved the fireworks launch site across the
river, making the best place to view the display just that brewpub deck. I plan
to get there early!
 |
| Maybe Reason #6--the mountain views in summer. |
Now, summers
have a few drawbacks, too, some bigger than others:
--Destructive
weather. We’ve probably seen the last of heavy
downpours, flooding and landslides until the fall here in western North
Carolina, but the folks all along the Mississippi River and its tributaries are
facing historic flooding right now. Tornadoes have flattened towns throughout
the Midwest and South all spring and will probably continue to threaten the
region into the summer. Climate change is driving all this wild weather,
putting millions of people and a vast amount of farmland at risk.
--Drownings,
lost hikers and accidents in the woods. Recent lost hikers
in Hawaii have called national attention to this problem, which is all too common
here in the Appalachians, near Great Smoky Mountains National Park and other
outdoor attractions. North Carolina has a lot of beautiful waterfalls, which
draw unwary outdoor enthusiasts to their deaths every summer. Young people,
especially, think they’re invulnerable and ignore warnings, taking crazy risks.
Rescue teams are sometimes too late.
--Poison
ivy, my personal bane. This is not a threat to life, of
course, but no summer is complete without an encounter with this evil denizen
of the woods. Climate change is at work here, too, since this plant just loves higher levels of carbon dioxide
and heat. Great.
--Raccoons
and squirrels. Fine animals in their place, but
when they set out to dig up all my recently planted shrubs or steal the
just-ripe strawberries from my raised planting box, this means war!
Cheers, Donna
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