I will not soon forget the summer.  I have  been on the rabbit patch a bit more than a decade now and have never seen a summer the likes of this one.  Yesterday, the weatherman claimed that this location was the hottest in the state-and I believe it with all my heart. It was reported that it had been 116 degrees with the heat index .  I hope the burrows in the rabbit patch are deep where the earth is cool.

I have spent the best part of the last few days inside.  This is not my habit by nature, but it is as of lately.  I have worked in heat all of my life, but this summer is “a horse of a different color” .  It is quite helpful that my interests are many and vary greatly.  The confinement of the last few days has led me to do the things I usually do in January.  I have been reading and painting old furniture.  An old table and a dresser are now “sitting pretty” with a fresh coat of white paint. I am also working on a wooden tray.  It is white too, but I intend to paint flowers and a rabbit on it-if the heat doesn’t let up, tomorrow.  

I also decided to wash a small collection of glass  that I have.  I find washing pretty pieces of glass quite therapeutic.   Only the summer allows me to spend a Tuesday morning doing such things.   There are only a few pieces and they are in shades  of turquoise, blue, periwinkle and aqua.  There is an old bottle, a bird and even a small antique oil lamp in the collection.  One piece came from Egypt and the piece beside it, from an old barn.  I washed them all and took great satisfaction in the way they sparkled in the sun that spilt  in the window.  The sunshine through the glass made a watery rainbow of blues and greens-this I thought is the color of summer.

The latter days of summer are a good time to wash the heavy linens used in winter.  A clothes line is quite handy for this.  I have a line full of soft blankets now, that were hung in the early morning , when the day was new and the scent of the mimosa filled the air up.  The practice of using a clothes line is fading fast-and with it will go the pleasure of sleeping on line dried sheets.  Hanging clothes out is a peaceful task-and you are liable to solve a problem or say a prayer while doing so.  I have done both.

I will make pimento cheese today .  Summer is an especially good time for that.  It is a simple process and I may think about Christmas while making it.  Cash and Christopher Robin will lay in front of the window fan hoping  that I will cook chicken in some form next-and if I do it will be in the morning, only requiring warming up later. The only exception is if it is fried.  When I was a child, my grandmother and every other woman in the county cooked on summer mornings.  We had a big dinner and a good rest in the middle of the day.  When dinner was over, a table cloth was spread over the entire table til supper when a fresh pan of biscuits and dessert was added to the meal.  We did not have an air conditioner in those days-of course it wasn’t as hot then.  Food was mainly fresh without preservatives also, but we stayed alive anyway.

 I find that sometimes processes  themselves can be of great value.  I have never said a prayer when putting clothes in a dryer.  Soon enough, summer will end and the details of life will increase at the rabbit patch .  Then and always,   I will be glad for the memory of  a Tuesday  morning spent washing little glass objects in shades of blue and seeing the color of summer because of it.