""Blessings Strengthen life and feed life just as water does." Rachel Naomi Remen, MD

This blog is a digital blessing bowl, a place to record the small blessings that are often missed or forgotten but which make life holy. Feel free to add your own blessings to my blessing bowl. Or perhaps you'll be encouraged to start your own.

Monday, June 28, 2010

A little summer magic

When I was a child hot summer nights meant playing outside until bedtime, catching lightening bugs, playing tag, and always being reluctant to go inside for bed.  We had no air conditioning.  But the memories of summer nights are almost all good, as are the memories of summer meals on the screened porch, when we were allowed to drink sweet tea instead of milk.  There was corn on the cob and cantaloupe, fresh green beans and watermelon.  Grilled hamburgers with baked beans.
Lightening bugs bring back all those memories.  I "googled" lightening bugs tonight, curious to know what they eat - whether they're considered beneficial insects.  It appears that they're fairly harmless beetles, eating slugs and snails and drinking nectar.  For more about them, click here.  Or if you'd like to help with firefly research,  check out this article in the New York Times.
I think I'll just enjoy the magic they bring to a hot summer evening.

1 comment:

Stacy said...

Childhood summer nights really were magical things, weren't they? We didn't have air conditioning either, or even fans, and somehow we managed fine without in ways that I couldn't now. My best summer memories all seem to revolve around evenings and food, too. We went to farm stands a lot, and it was always so exciting when each new summer fruit came into season.