Sunday, August 4, 2019

Feeling Mellow by the Yellow

When I think of August, I think of the color yellow and I start to feel a tad mellow and even melancholy. Summer is waning. 

In May, June and July, the landscape is a vivid shade of green. Once the calendar turns to August, however, and we move through the month, that same landscape begins to turn a yellowish-green, as if it's tiring out and is tossing us some hints that autumn is coming and we'd better get ready.




August's hallmark feverish heat and brilliant sunshine are often accompanied by a dreamy haze of humid weather, including early morning fog and early evening mist. We hurry to get in some more lazy afternoons in the hammock reading a book. Or perhaps we pack up the kids and head to the water with a beach umbrella and a heavy picnic basket. 

The small garden patch's late summer produce is at its most abundant, including enough zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers to feed an entire neighborhood. Among my favorite late summer yellow food is corn on the cob nestled in its brown-tasseled husk. In our household, we make a dinner of it, usually with juicy, thick slices of tomato. By month's end, pears and early apples are available at orchards and farmer's markets.




The flowers boast their yellow color, as well: Sunflowers with their big, cheery faces, black-eyed susans in rich abundance, goldenrod peeking through the tall grasses, sunshiny gladioli and more. 




The weeds seem to relax a bit in August - a gift to any gardener. 

The sunrises and sunsets are yellow and other sherbet colors splashing across the horizon. The sun pokes its head up in the morning a little later than a month ago and it decides to go to bed for the night earlier, too. As the sun sets, we open the windows to escape from the air conditioning and invite the cool breeze and the night sounds in. The sky somehow appears thicker with stars. August is an ideal month of star gazing.




The cicadas sing to us during the day and the crickets take over in the cloak of darkness. The butterflies dance around us.

School will start soon and summer will end, all the more reason to relish every single one of the precious days of August while we can.

How do you plan to enjoy these magnificent August days and evenings?




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