If you look around your neighbors’ yards you may see Naked Ladies- also known as Surprise Lilies and Magic Lilies- popping up everywhere. These are Summer’s gift after many hot days, humid nights, and a sudden shower or two. They seem to magically pop out of the ground overnight and give a brief warning that Summer is almost over and Fall is just around the corner. Gone are the delicate pale pink and prissy lemon yellow blooms of Spring, and in their place have roared in the hot coal reds and glowing oranges of Summertime in the South.
I decided to take a break from television drama, stock market crashes, fires and looting all over London, and just enjoy a few minutes of my little corner of Clarksville. In less than one square mile from our home I found a wealth of beautiful blooms in the form of carpets of impatiens, pampas grass waving in the breeze, and flirty Black-eyed Susans just daring me to take a photo or two. If you look up, you just may find some ripe apples or pears or maybe a persimmon that ‘s not quite ready for eating. Tomatoes are fully ripe now and just begging to be sliced onto a buttter and tomato, or a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. You can still find some good corn just ready to be shucked and tossed into a pot of boiling water.
Make well of these Summer days . Too soon they will fade into frosty nights and a soft blanket of early morning snow. You’ll wish for the warmth of the late Summer evenings and the smell of a charcoal grill, and Old Man Winter will sneak in with short wet cloudy days and long dark nights, but Spring will return, as she always does and pulls behind her a wagon of beautiful blooms to brighten our world once again.
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