But there are lots and lots of things I love even more about summer. Daylight past 8 p.m. Pick-up baseball games and trips to the park and not having to bundle up when you walk outside. Those nasty hot, humid days that end when the wind picks up and a cold front ushers in a quiet, beautiful summer rain.
And porch swings. Ohhh I love porch swings.
I've got lots of summer memories from my life on the farm. In fact, thinking back, most of my childhood memories are from the summer; you wouldn't know it's only three months long. I remember the four of us being sent out in the morning and not going back in until dinnertime. We caught bugs, counted cars, dug lots of holes, built treehouses, and exhausted our imagination. Unbelievably, we seemed to manage all of this without any injuries. Ever.
These days, I don't live on a farm. Not even close to a farm. And that's not going to happen anytime soon, if not ever.
So this year, we brought the farm to me.
Several months ago on my birthday, when we had just made the decision to buy this house, Chad bought me a hammock - or the promise of a hammock - to put in the backyard I had always wanted. Problem was, I only half-wanted a hammock. I could foresee Jackson getting tangled up in it when he was playing and having to mow around it and lying there swatting bugs in it and the idea became less appealing. So I never bought it.
About a month ago, on one of those first few summer nights where Jackson had gone to bed but it was still light out, I came out to our porch. Sitting here decompressing and reading a book, I looked up to soak it all in.
Rungs.
Sure enough, someone who owned this house within its last 60 years must have loved porch swings too, because there were already rungs screwed into the studs. It was almost too easy to decide that I needed a porch swing for my birthday present. But we're talking about me...so of course it wasn't.
I looked and looked and looked - and then Chad looked - for the perfect fit. I finally picked one. And picked the stain. And ordered it. Two weeks later, this beauty was sitting on my front steps (bless you, online shopping).
This little lady is small - as Chad said, "It can only fit two Tolleys" - but, man, it's awesome.
Last Sunday night, we had some friends over for a cookout. The second Jackson went to bed, it started to rain, and we had to move the party inside. Until Chad brilliantly suggested we go out on the porch, so there the four of us sat - protected from the downpour but still enjoying the smell in the air and the cool breeze on our skin - and chatted for three more hours.
Around 11:00, our friends went home. And the rain stopped. And the days got hot again. And we went back to work after the long weekend, and life got more complicated. But the summer has stuck around, seemingly forever. Something tells me that a lot of memories will be made on this porch, and it makes me happy that even though I can't totally replicate my childhood for Jackson, there are some things we can do that might make him look back in 33 years and smile.
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