Last of the Lazy Days of Summer

The calendar and the weather agree it's still summer but the sky tells the truth. The rapidly changing angle of the sun, that particular deep shade of blue of a September afternoon, the chill in the evenings after a hot day, all spell the demise of yet another summer. Night comes faster now and the stars seem clearer- last night as I stared up at the night sky and a nearly full moon, the heavens appeared closer and more vivid than I can ever recall in this city full of light pollution. These are things that you cannot capture with a camera but it doesn't make them any less tangible.


In the heat of the day however, it's easy to forget that summer's coming to a close, and the lure of the beach, a blanket and a book is hard to ignor. Like me the tomatoes are in denial, throwing out new flowers and fruit like they've got months of growing yet to do. I long to seize their optimism and I have my fingers crossed for a long Indian summer but their days are numbered no matter what. Better to try to ripen what's there than expend energy on new growth.

So for this lazy Sunday of summer, a compromise: this morning I cut back most of the new growth on on all tomatoes but I left a branch or two of new growth and flowers- for the bees, if not for any fruit I'll ever see. And this evening when a chill sneaks into the air, I'll fire up the canner and bottle up some grape juice for the winter ahead. But for the rest of the afternoon, you'll find me lying on a blanket in the sun reading a book. While I still can.