August already.. A month for picnics

I love this month. I know this is still summer and I always seem to be ahead of the season. I grew up in the palouse empire. August was the start of fall for us. The crops were just getting done being harvested and the colors of the land were golden, oranges, browns and grey. It was fall colors. August was a time for canning and putting up food and preparing for winter. Usually by Halloween in Spangle, we had our first snow. So winter was not very far away.
For us kids it was a lazy time of lemonade, long bike rides, hiding away in hedgerows and under overgrown trees. It was a time for boredom and for creativity.
In farming country it is a time when things speed up then suddenly slow down. Combines clear the crops, women cook for the field hands and then the farming is done, the crops are in and life becomes simpler and quieter.
When I was growing up, July and August were the very best months. My family would pack up the car, take off for the lake at about 9:00 in the morning and then would spend the entire day into the evening at the lake. We went to Badger lake or Williams Lake usually. We had a huge picnic went swimming and played in the playground at the lake. It was a fun time and one I remember very well.
I also remember the days spent hiking or bike riding about a mile from our home where there was an old lilac hedge. I would go to the center of it where it was cool and sparse and had sturdy branches and I would spend the entire day pretending it was a house or a fort with an upstairs and a downstairs. Bike rides would turn into adventures that lasted for hours and we traveled miles to see what was over the next hill.
August was a time for fairs. That is where my husband and I first met. We met at the Interstate Fair in Spokane. My girlfriend wanted to make sure I was a fifth wheel when she met up with a friend she knew from some church function. He wanted to spend time with her and she didn't want to spend time with him! I was to make sure he never got her alone. I loved carnival rides then and Dan (the boy who was pursuing my girlfriend and later became my husband) chose the carnival rides as a way to get rid of me. He figured if he could get me sick on the rides I would leave my girlfriend alone for him. After two rides I got deathly ill ... So did my girlfriend and Dan was left to wonder who that fifth wheel was. I on the other hand swore I would get even if it was the last thing I ever did. I met Dan two years later and we became friends, then more and sometime in our relationship I did get even!
I hope you enjoy your August. I know I will. R