Beech Tree News Network

What do you like about summertime? Summer reminds me of warm weather, flowers in the yard, fresh fruits and vegetables, ice cream, and the Fourth of July. I also like the long summer days.

Some summer facts are randomly listed below (http://www.brighthubeducation.com/summer-learning-activities-ideas/11456...):
•    In North Africa, the longest day of the year – Midsummer's Eve, June 24th – is celebrated.
•    The 'dog days' of summer – the hot, sticky days – get their name from the rising of the Sirius, the Dog Star. The Sirius rises around the hottest time of the year.
•    On July 4, 1956, a world record for the most rain falling in one minute was recorded in Unionville, Maryland: 1.23 inches in that one minute.
•    On September 3, 1970, world-record hailstones weighing 1.67 pounds fell in Coffeyville, Kansas.
•    On September 13, 1922, the temperature in the Libyan Desert reached 136 degrees Fahrenheit.

A variety of thoughts about summer are represented by the following quotes:
•    A summer's sun is worth the having. –French Proverb
•    A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. –James Dent
•    Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. –John Lubbock
•    A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter. –Patricia Briggs
•    I drifted into a summer nap under the hot shade of July, serenaded by a cicadae lullaby, to drowsy-warm dreams of distant thunder. –Terri Guillemets
•    Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. –Sam Keen
•    Do what we can, summer will have its flies. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
•    Every summer has a story. –Unknown
•    Summer-induced stupidity. That was the diagnosis, I decided as I made my way up the dirt path in the pouring rain. –Aimee Friedman, Sea Change
•    Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January. –Hal Borland
•    Some beach somewhere, there’s a big umbrella casting shade over an empty chair. Palm trees are growing, warm breezes blowing. I picture myself there, some beach somewhere. –Unknown

Genesis 8:22 says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (NIV). I like that rhythm. As I look forward to summer, I’ve been spring cleaning and setting out flowers. The first is a necessity; the second is a joy: balance.