what do you visualize ...

when you think "summer"

{roadside Harrisonburg, Virginia}

Growing up roughly five miles outside of a small, quiet rural town, when I contemplate 'summer' I envision farms with their fields of corn or tall grass awaiting the day it will be rolled into bales of hay for the cows and livestock.  Stretches of days when the gorgeous blue sky quickly slip into an afternoon rain and just as quickly return to its storybook cloud formation.  Recalling how good it felt to find relief from the heat under some shade near the river, or detouring to that magical water hole with mountain spring water hidden along our bike trek.   I had the very good fortune to grow up at a time when nearly everyone or someone in everyone's family had a garden and they were all too happy to share some of their harvest - especially the zucchini - masses of zucchini. It is this point in the summer where I find myself in need of a trip to the local Farmer's Market to pick up some of those goodies.  Sight, taste, smells - all transporting me to happy memories.  Memories of slicing freshly washed tomatoes from my grandparents garden with my Aunt Jean who educated me on how an already amazing food could be made even better on freshly baked bread with a bit of butter.  Or standing in my kitchen I shared in Morgantown with my younger brother while I was in graduate school and he was in law school, baking loaf after loaf of zucchini bread filling the freezer with ample treats for the winter while at the same time making the house smell heavenly.  Years later catching a little curly headed girl sneaking another mini-ear of corn or asking for another slice of cucumber - thinking aloud how content she would be in a garden, or in the very least, at a salad bar.

Where do your visions of a season take you?