summer fading

what is your favorite part of summer?
in montana, we tend to say "the weather". this will last a week or so until people start complaining about the heat, the crowds at the lakes, the money spent on water to soak the garden and lawns. being from both arizona and montana, i tend to dismiss weather when i think of my summer love.
(yes, that is my fiancé with one of our chickens- nancy, the most brazen of them all.)

i love possibilities in summer. the idea that you can go outside at any moment. the new growth of things, which here doesn't begin until may. the perk in everyone's step. the hair let down, the clothes shed. fresh fruits and vegetables that taste like sunshine. summer is a period of growth. it is a time when, after long hibernation, our bodies become alive again under the sun.
in a month it will be fall. it is already winding down here. we got two months of sunshine. before that was snow. i am just grateful to have felt it at all. i will be living in a place where there is sun all the time, soon enough. for now i am savoring the smell of the warm pine needles in the sun.