The April 8 (yes, I know, but I haven’t checked my email since then) daily prompt was:
For many of us, winter is blooming into spring, or fall hardening into winter. Which season do you most look forward to?
This one is easy – summer, always summer. I like spring because I like to watch the earth come alive again, but also because it leads to summer. Summer means warm weather. Summer means vacation. Summer means watching thunder storms at the cottage.
Summer means long bike rides and hikes. Summer means shorts, t-shirts and SANDALS!
You would probably be hard pressed to find a teacher who didn’t like summer the best. Summer is the time when we can do those things we don’t have time to do during the school year, or just to RELAX. Sometimes, though, summer is a time to catch up on classes we need for a further endorsement or credits toward renewal of our teaching certificates.
When I was younger, I liked fall the best – crisp, cool air, brilliant colors on the trees, shuffling through the fallen leaves. The worst thing about fall is that it eventually got colder and turned into winter. I have never liked winter because I don’t tolerate the cold well. However, there are some good things about winter also: the Christmas season, drinking hot chocolate curled up under a warm blanket, sitting by a warm fireplace, and when the snow has freshly fallen, the landscape is brilliant and beautiful. I like the way the snow traces the branches of the trees. I DON’T like to shovel it! I’m not into sports, especially winter sports.
All the seasons have their attractions, and I would miss them if I were to live in a place where it is summer all year round. It is a marvel of nature to witness the cycle of life every year. It’s a reminder that nature is really in charge of our planet and that no matter how our own lives are going, nature is going about doing what it always does:
Seeds and bulbs lie dormant, waiting for the sign…
Life is born as tiny plants shoot up out of the ground after a long hard freeze,
birds return to budding trees and sing their joy to the warming spring air,
flowers invite visitors by opening their petals, revealing their fertile interiors,
insects hatch and reappear, their buzzing and busyness signaling their quest for food.
Rain falls, sometimes in tempestuous torrents, providing nourishment to the soil and plant roots,
trees in full foliage provide shade and green beauty when the sun shines down its greatest heat and helps manufacture the chlorophyll
collected by their abundant leaves.
Green gives way to red, yellow, orange and brown as trees lose their green chlorophyll and the sun diminishes its heat,
the air turns colder and the wind blows the fallen leaves,
trees are bare, waiting for
snow, which coats their branches and blankets the ground.
The ground freezes and animals hibernate,
the land is white and silent,
early shadows extend over the blinding white landscape,
snow falls or doesn’t,
ice melts on sunny days, dripping down into the frozen ground,
snow melts into water and
flows down, down, soaking the ground and the dead grass…
giving a sign, with the help of the rising sun
that it’s time for life to awaken and
begin its cycle again.
