Salutations to Summer

It's time. Summer is drawing to a close and those cooler cozy evenings are creeping into the picture. I get home and it still smells and feels like those dog-days of summer as I come in still adorned with summery skirts and flip flops, anxiously reaching for the thermostat to drop the temperature and crank the air conditioning if only for one more week, but when I leave my house first thing in the morning, it smells like autumn. Of course, the weather forecasts are still saying mid-eighties all week and lows only in the low-seventies, but I know September means hay-rides and trees turning colors and quite frankly, they can't fool me, as I already know that autumn is in full blown splendor in less than a month, so it can't always be summer.

When I leave the house in the morning, I look on my deck and see my stack of logs left from a warm winter and my woody rosemary plant that is longing to be thrown alongside new potatoes for a fun roast once the temperature cools enough to justify turning on the oven, and I have to smile for my favorite season is on its way.

So as I feel the cooler breezes and acknowledge that summer is slowly leaving the picture, global warming or not, I will still relish these final moments before the northern hemisphere succumbs to the warming tones and cooling feel of autumn and all those heart-warming moments that ensue. Salutations to summer and hail to the oncoming autumn!