Bonfires and Hailies

The Summer of 2009 is drawing to a very wet, soggy end. I'm actually wondering if we ever really had a summer? It, perhaps instead, has been the longest Spring on record in Montana. Our hills and mountains are green, lush and beautiful, unusual for August. We even had HAIL twice this month. The circle in this picture is where a hail ball the size of a ping-pong ball hit and cleared out the rest of the little hailies. The kids collected some pong-hailies and froze them in the freezer.We will miss the activities of summer. The kids have spent their days walking or riding their bikes the 4 miles into town, then spending long hours at the Library or swimming at the City Pool, or floating the Yellowstone River. Megan was thrilled that we found Gluten-Free cones so she could enjoy a little taste of summer.....

A sign that summer is drawing to a close is witnessed in the hectic dash to the malls to dress children in the latest fads for the school hallways that have become the teen fashion show runways of our country. When did school become less about education and more about social experimentation? Our summer also contained sleepovers on the back deck that usually ended up moving into the livingroom because of rain.
Victor built a huge campfire pit. The kids christened it's maiden-burning on the last day of school by burning their school work and written reports. The bon-fire that was created from 9 months of math was glorious! And then they finished off the evening with SMORES!

June 7, 2009 - School work bonfire

Heather, Megan, Matthew, Rachael and Stacey eating Brooke's smore.

It seems that the first day of school ushers in Autumn and Summer is no more. For us, that means that the tourists go home, our town slows down to our backward-pace, the wind revs up and the deer clump-up in the fields and then lay down to "rest" on the shoulders of our roads. Autumn begins August 26th!