One sign of summer here in the midwest is that humidity that gives my hair (1) three times it's normal volume and (2) free will. Yes, my hair is actually used by the Weather Channel to verify that their barometers are working properly. In exchange for this valuable information I get the Weather Channel free with my Basic Cable package.
What? You do too? Hey, wait a minute. That ain't right!
Another sign of summer THIS year in Normal is that professional baseball is just around the corner. Our very own unaffiliated minor league baseball team, the Cornbelters, open the season on June 1st. Unfortunately I have an NCC Steering Committee Meeting that night, so won't be able to go to this monumental event. I've seen pictures of the mascot, Corny. Corny's hair looks like mine will when I'm 87 and it thins out a lot but still blows up in the humidity and demonstrates the property of Entropy for all to see and enjoy.
Of course the garden is a sign summer is on it's way. Right now the best looking plants in my garden are the one bleeding heart plant that did not get creamed by a soccer ball this spring, AND a wildflower that took root in the middle of my petunia patch. I had to look it up in my handy dandy "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Wildflowers Eastern Region" book. The plant is called a Star Chickweed, scientific name "stellaria pubera" and one interesting feature of the flower is that it looks like it has 10 tiny white petals but upon closer examination it has only 5 petals that are each split into 2 sections. It grows best on rocky slopes. Yup, rocky is a good description for that part of my garden.
Stellaria Pubera sounds like a good porn star name.
Here is a photo of some really beautiful star chickweed, not the volunteer plant in my garden, which is a littler more scraggly looking than this one. Kind of like Corny's hair.
Then of course, school will be out the middle of next week. My kids will spend 3 days at a gymnastics day camp, then have a week of vacation with me. We'll be going to Tennessee to see Grandma and Grandad for much of that week. Then we come back to Normal and they will be at Fairview Day Camp, the Normal Parks and Recreation program for the next nine weeks. They will swim almost everyday. They'll turn brown as beautiful berries and that, of course, if the surest sign of summer.
Except for the lightening bugs, which I hope will make an appearance very very soon.
6 comments:
I have a poem called "My Porn Name" in a magazine with beautiful roses on the cover. Would you like a copy?
I've already seen lightening bugs in our yard. Not tons of them yet, but for the past few weeks I've seen a stray one here and there -- once on the ground and in a tree in the backyard.
Yes Kathy, I WOULD like a copy of that. Susan, I will try to stay up later than 8:30 and see one tonight!!
My spiderwort is getting ready to bloom! This is not a disease like clematis.
I still call them Fireflies, like the poems and stories of my childhood (in California, where we didn't have any fireflies) - one of my favorite parts of summer in the Midwest! They still seem kind of magical to me - like fairies.
See Thursday's blog for more on spiderwort!
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