Letitia Suk's Blog, page 12

Six Steps to an Intentional Summer*

A Lake Michigan morning

Do you make a bucket list for each summer? Lovely June is still in bloom so plenty of time to create your personal plan for the best season of the year!

On the last day of school we used to take our kids out to the best breakfast in town to plan the summer fun and I have carried on the tradition sans the waffles.  Here’s what works:

Decide what you love best about summer and plan that first:  Beach or pool?  Buy your passes.  Hitting the road?  Pick out those dates. Outdoor music?  Grab a calendar of events. Ride your bike? Check your tires. Scribble your calendar with your summer fantasies.
Plan something summer-y to do this week.  Too often we put off fun for “later in the summer” and miss the opportunity of now.
Change your menus.  We switch out our Sunday soups for summer salads and eat outside as often as we can. I also change out plates and silverware for summer-only colorful tableware.
 Switch-up your summer reading.  Doesn’t have to qualify for a beach novel but a change of reading pace is fun. I love to read outside on summer nights until there is no light left.
Try something new: Run/walk a 5 K? Try your hand at homemade salsa? Discover a new bike path? Visit a neighborhood festival? Browse an art fair? Lots of possibilities

The Farmer in the Yard

While my grandpa drove his green John Deere tractor through the soybean fields, my grandma tended her tomatoes. The best view of the large garden was right outside her bedroom window so I bet that was the first thing she looked at each summer morning. She even had a scarecrow like in the Wizard of Oz.

I couldn’t wait to grow my own tomatoes.

The first chance came when we found out we could rent a garden plot in town, we didn’t have room for one at our place yet. By the next summer we did.

Ever impatient with details, I didn’t bother to read up on the how or why, I just dug a hole and in they went. But the tomatoes came. One summer we counted 663! Tom’s Czech Babi taught me how to can and make the best chili sauce. We enjoyed those tomatoes in some form or another all year-long.

I kept planting but got busy too. Lots more to do in my day-to-day besides tend tomatoes. One year I got them in the ground in July and picked them in November. They went into a brown bag to ripen. Not exactly Plan A.

The yield slowed down, a lot. Maybe the soil got tired. The varmints started encroaching and I lost many a red bulb to a one bite taste. I think I lost some interest too.

Then the tomato thieves came.

My neighbor called one morning: “Someone just left your garden with a bulging bag.” Sure enough, all the ripe ones were gone. I never caught the marauders but I also never got any tomatoes that summer.

After that, I hung up my hoe and called it a day. Farmer no more.

A couple of years ago, I told our lawn guys to just start mowing down the garden. And they did. It seemed appropriate I assured myself, I was on to other things, right?

But something felt shut down.

I didn’t identify it until I read a book on the beach, Roots and Sky by Christie Purifoy. A most beautiful book indeed but her memoirs of her garden brought tears down my cheeks.  I yearned to plant tomatoes again, not just buy them at the farmer’s market but grown in my yard. And not just picking the fruit but the whole experience.

The answer to my longing came quickly. Within a week my next door neighbor built a large garden box for their yard and hoisted one over the fence for us too.  It seemed completely random as I had not shared those garden longings with anyone. I knew, of course, there was nothing random about it at all.

Leap and the net will appear or something like that. More likely God heard my heart.

I took my youngest granddaughter to the plant market and carefully chose 5 tomato plants, a red pepper and a few herbs.  We came home and put them in right away. Every day I go outside and check. Nothing yet but they’re on the way.

My garden assistant

Next time some part of me feels shut down, I hope to pay attention a little sooner.

I wish the same for you. How does your garden grow?

Hope for the best,

Tish