Summer 2011 Bucket List

It's a reality that summer is half over (if you gauge from Memorial Day to Labor Day). The chorus of tree frogs and crickets? (or maybe they're cicadas!) are in full swing, produce is coming in by the bushel, the dog days of summer are here, and July seems to be ticking past. Even the Joe Pye weed, my favorite late summer wildflower, is starting to emerge along the roadsides. But don't fret, there are still many summer days left to enjoy (and we just found out that our boys' school doesn't start until August 17 so that gives us four more full weeks from today––they've been off since May 6!).

Here's my Summer 2011 Bucket List of things to do before it's all over and fall is here (one long and glorious Kentucky fall, I might add). With a few exceptions, all are with the family:

• Make sangria and share it with my husband on the porch
• Get up at dawn and share coffee with my husband on the porch
• Take a blanket and go star-gazing on the knob (especially during the Perseids showers)
• Catch the moonbow at Cumberland Falls at the next full moon––August 13
• Go bowling a few more times (this is becoming a Pond pastime and it's a great way to spend a hot afternoon)
• Go to a drive-in movie at the 27-Drive In in Somerset
• Pack a picnic and just drive with a vague destination  (eg. bushwhacking!)

• Don't pack a picnic and just drive with no destination (and find a great place for lunch)

• Start perennial seeds for next year's garden

• Pick a lot of blackberries and make jam

• Make pickles and ketchup

• Head down to Tennessee and find a beat up old porch glider at the Hwy 127 Yard Sale (August 4-7)

• Write more notes and letters to old friends
• Take in an outdoor summer concert somewhere
• Read that pile of books I've been meaning to get to––in between naps
• Try some new summer recipes that I've been clipping
• Take at least one more short trip somewhere within 5 hours
• Listen for the whippoorwill "of an evening" (he's out there somewhere!)
• Write and submit a few more essays on spec to editors
• Plan my "back to school" writing schedule (for when kids return)

• Swim nude in the cattle tank

• Learn to ted hay with the tractor
• Have a slumber party at the cottage

• Bake a "thunder cake" with the boys during the next thunderstorm––from the looks of the northern sky right now over the knob, I think that would be now (but it's 9:20pm so probably the next one...according to the Weather Channel we're about to have ten days of hot and humid with isolated and scattered thunderstorms––what would spring and summer be without them?).

Now, what's on your list?

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine