Say goodbye to summer

It has been gloriously warm and dry this week; perhaps the loveliest week of the season.  We have been very busy. In addition to the two trips I’ve made to Boston, we’ve been making preparations for the beginning of Peter’s school year and have also had a guest.  Our friend James, who is nine and the son of Peter’s godfather, has been with us since Monday.  The boys have fished and swum, gone crabbing and quahogging, played computer games, built bionicals, and wrestled with our dog, Buddy.  James loves Buddy, and has shared with us lots of fun observations regarding Buddy’s status.  He finds it “tragic” that Buddy is fed only twice a day, since clearly Buddy “lives to eat”. There was also an interesting riff this morning about the impropriety of keeping a dog in a box, and how Buddy’s box was actually our whole house, and how it was a big box.  He then segued into the Obama’s dog, and how it lived in an even bigger box, (the White House), and then James informed us that the President doesn’t actually have an office in the Capitol Building, that he works from home (the White House) and that he supposes that he must spend all day long on the computer.  And then he ended with this:  “I’m sure that at the end of every day President Obama must have at least one paper cut”.

Yesterday we went on a hike in the woods.  James was a little anxious about any potential encounters with wild animals, but aside from a small orange newt, we mostly saw scat and game trails.  We did, however, see the marks made by a bear’s claws on a birch tree.  I asked James if he thought that was pretty cool and he responded that it was alright, but certainly better than actually seeing a bear.

Last night we had a big spaghetti supper, which the boys practically inhaled, as well as some delicious corn on the cob grown locally.  And now Labor Day is almost upon us. I’m sad to see summer go, but I look forward to the return of certain routines once school starts.  I haven’t touched my paints all summer, and I’m itching to get back to it. I’m also looking forward to the changing of the leaves. The forest here is primarily hardwood, and the colors in fall are spectacular. It is also a season to savor for other reasons, as it is followed by the almost six months of winter we have in the mountains of New Hampshire.

But not yet.  Now there will be a few weeks when summer gently fades into fall, and this is one of the best times of all.