There is much I don’t like about summer, most notably bugs and heat. I don’t like that traffic sounds are louder because I generally have all the doors and windows to my house open. Summer is when every Yahoo in their monster pick-up has their music booming so loudly it’s bothersome even when your windows are up and so are theirs.

Summer is wildfire season, it’s drought season (more drought), it’s the-power-goes-out-because-another-tree-fell-on-the-power-lines season. Summer is lawn mowers, closely followed by weed whackers and blowers. Lordy, how did civilization lurch forward without mowers, weed whackers, and blowers? A mystery for the ages.

And yet… summer is also when the robins sing. They start around 5 am now, when it’s just getting light, and that sound, of birdsong at dawn, is sweeter to my ears than nearly anything save the laughter of children. Summer is when I can hear the cows across the lane munching grass through the long, mild nights. They are beef cows, so the babies stay with their mamas for months, and this occasions some bovine conversation from time to time, and I like that too.

I hear crickets in summer, chirping away, because for them cold weather won’t come around for at least half an eternity. Summer is when I hear the pitter-pitter-thump of kittens playing with each other out on the porch. I hear the skunks who live under the porch arguing with each other, and that is sometimes followed the pungent aroma of a skunk making an emphatic point. I kinda like the smell of skunk, if it’s upwind some.

I love the scent of honeysuckle on the evening breeze, the smell of freshly tedded grass hay, and the flavor of wild raspberries picked at peak ripeness. This too, is summer, and I suspect it all feels more precious now–the crickets and robins and moo cows–because my senses are not as sharp as they used to be. I know the day might come when I can’t hear much of anything, can’t taste much, and have little olfactory perception.

The day might come sooner than I think when my bad back or wobbly balance precludes yanking weeds, much less planting flowers all over the property. Plant ye geraniums, while ye may, Grace Ann.

If that winter should befall me, the memories of what I love about summer are going to matter much more than all the reasons I can think of to grumble about warm weather.  I will need to recall the flowers and forget the weeds, recall the birdies and forget the monster trucks.

What do you love about summer, despite the heat, bugs, and wildfires?