Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and grandfathers out there!
I went out to photograph a barn the other day, and spotted a patch of purple clover growing by the side of the road.
I was instantly transported back to my childhood in the summertime…
climbing trees,
barefoot for most of the day,
our dog following me around,
and nothing more important to do than to sit and suck the sweetness from the clover blossoms.
I’m concerned that kids today don’t experience that kind of lazy summer day.
When I was a child, we didn’t have cable tv (or any video player),
and we didn’t have a game system until we got an Atari when I was probably around 10-12 years old (does anyone remember Pong?).
I lived in the country, without much close by for entertainment.
What I did have was a good-size yard,
a forest behind my house,
a tire swing on the big tree in front of our house,
and a big sandbox that my dad built.
And that was enough.
I think lazy summer days, without 100 forms of entertainment, lead to more creativity in kids.
They dig in the dirt,
they build sand castles,
they climb trees and chase butterflies,
they gather wildflowers,
and they use all of their senses to experience our incredible world.
So a lazy summer day really wasn’t so lazy after all.
Free printable wildflowers in pitcher photo (without watermark) available HERE.
Wishing you and your family many lazy summer days!
Blessings,
I couldn’t agree more this is sooo true and those types of summer days are the best! I find myself longing for them at times and you just helped me to relive it once again, wonderful! Hoping I can help create days like this with my granddaughter. 🙂 Thanks for the post and the beautiful picture.
Many Blessings to you, Candy
Ah, yes. Queen Anne’s Lace by the roadside and cattails in the creek. If I had sticks and some twine and my kitty to carry around I was set for the afternoon!
You are so right. I remember peeling a golf ball. It kept me busy for hours and hours. During that time of working on the golf ball, I had so much time to think. Thanks for helping me relive my childhood once again. The picture is beautiful. Wish my printer wasn’t on the fritz!
Carol P-K
Yes. Drying cattails for days and lighting them as torches. I remember plucking crabs from the cove as they were ready to slough and putting them overboard in the live box, watching and waiting to retrieve them again, so Grandmother could prepare them for frying the instant their too small shells left their growing bodies. The best was popping warm, ripe red cherry tomatoes straight from the vines into our mouths for the sweetest afternoon snack. Those were simpler days.
Your childhood sounds very similar to mine, Angie…I grew up in what we used to call “the boonies” in a little house with a huge yard and a forest all around us. We didn’t even have colour television til I was 10 and that was only at the insistence of my uncle who sold TV sets…at that time, we also got an Atari with Pong, but we never used it much…we were too busy running around outdoors with the neighbourhood kids, building forts, playing tag, riding horses, and stealing goodies from the garden. I was actually just thinking about how we had an official “Firefly Night” in our neighbourhood…every year in June, all of the kids would grab the biggest jars we could find and our parents would take us out hunting for fireflies in the dark…it was always such fun! I wish all children had the benefit living their childhoods out in “the boonies” where they can be one with nature with nothing to limit them but their own imaginations.
Such a lovely photo…we used to love to suck out the sweetness from the clover flowers, too! Those were the days when you could lay on your back in the long grass, suck on clover, declare the shapes you saw in the clouds to your friends, and have a good laugh. Thank you for bringing this all back to me…though these glory days are long gone, we always have the memories to cherish!
You are SO right about today’s children not experiencing those lazy summer days of exploring the natural world. I see it in my grandsons, ages 3 and 4, already, and it worries me. They are so focussed on TV and on video games at this tender age. Sometimes I wish that television and computers hadn’t ever been invented! I know that is extreme, and the real solution is for parents to severely limit exposure to those addictions. (My rant for today! Now to bed.) Thanks for sharing your tho’ts on exploring nature and learning to treasure it.