Yesterday was hot hot hot and humid humid humid. I stayed inside after returning from the Farmers' Market (love that aspect of summer, as I am pretty much enthralled with the rhythm of life in a small town in the summer), until I realized it was time to do something to get some exercise. So I went for a walk.
My mother and I judge the progress of the summer season by the bug life. Her birthday is the second of June and right about then we first see the first of the lightning bugs. Mine is the second of July and we would mark it by the first appearance of the cicadas, that awful sawing, ear-shattering sound that means summer. It is also the week usually that the temperature used to break 100 when I was growing up in eastern Kansas. I am not now living in eastern Kansas, but in northern Missouri, where we get the Iowa climate, and temps seldom top 100 degrees. The difference in temperatures is usually 5 to 10 degrees (here is cooler). But on Friday, as I left a concert on the town square, the cicadas were out.
And last night they were having big parties, celebrating the 90 (91, 92) degree temps and the 80+% humidity. It was hot when I went to the grocery store. It was already hot in early June. This is not a good trend. The world has set hottest month ever recorded records three times this spring. This doesn't make me happy, and I am worried about the polar bears. I am not being facetious. I am worried about the polar bears.
I have been trying to lose weight, which is going so well I am a bit worried. So when I am tired I am taking a walk rather than a nap. And the grocery store is 15 minutes each direction, so makes a decent "walk" and there is a purpose at the end of the trip. I needed some dishwashing liquid, so instead of driving I walked. Probly better for the environment, too.
But anyway...
I love my small town. In spite of the fact that I used bug spray and still got mosquito dive-bombed it was a lovely walk. There is a woman who lives down the street from me, who always compliments me when I am out (on rare occasions) weeding the beds either side of the front door. She has a daughter and a one-year-old son. She was out on the grass a couple of blocks away and said hello. She was playing with her son, whose current favourite game is putting things in a container and having her take them out. Last night it was pennies and a long yellow plastic tube with an attached lid that looked as if it should have held a toothbrush. He was upset when he lost a penny, but his hand coordination was not so good that he wouldn't drop one every third or fourth time he tried to put them in. I found a couple in the grass, on the other side of him from her, as the angle was different for me. We talked a bit about what the best excuses were for not doing yard work on a hot day. We pretty much agreed that being pregnant was the best one, and having a baby was the second best. My sheer laziness and distaste for humidity fell pretty far down the list, but she was gracious about it.
I don't know her name -- she lives a couple of blocks down from me (I am not completely sure which house, in fact), but she is always friendly. For the most part people here are. And they are certainly more friendly if you are on foot. That is interesting to me. As I have been walking much more this past spring I have had time to see more (I want to stop and ask someone who lives several blocks from me if I can take several of the wild grape vine leaves to make dolmades).
The Farmers' Market in town is every Saturday morning from 6 or 7 am to about 11. I don't know exactly when it starts -- I find that getting there by about 7:45 allows me to get anything I want. There is arugula that disappears by about 8 (but then the grocery stores in town usually have arugula, and I was thrilled to discover watercress in small amounts as an "herb" last week at the store). Asparagus tends to be bought up early as well. The sellers have finally figured out there is a demand for eggs, so there are more people raising chickens and selling eggs these days. I bought blueberries (and will be going to pick them next Friday) and eggs and new potatoes and shelling peas and other glories of spring. I also was happy to see several friends. Each hour you see the regulars, different ones for each period of the morning. We have baked goods for sale but not other cooked food as you might find at a larger market (and this is so dependent on people who are in town, even temporarily! We used to have a woman who made steamed dumplings, either veggie or pork, and sold them both at the market and by delivery while her partner was at medical school in town). We also have flowers and plants (more at the start of the season, in May) and meats -- chickens and beef and the best pork I have ever tasted (Hereford is the breed, if that means anything to anyone).
But the reason I go is largely for the social experience of being at the market in the morning. Everything is slower and it is lovely and cooler than it will be later in the day.
There is a certain comfort and security to the rhythm of a small town in the summers. Whereas some of our students at the university cannot wait to get out of town in the summer, by the time they are juniors a significan proportion make a point of staying in our small town (17,000+ residents) over the summer, taking advantage of the Friday evening concerts on the square every week, the movies (both at the local theatre and in the park, free, occasionally), the chance to volunteer (there are lunches in the parks five days a week for kids, a program that always needs volunteers, and an activities program by the local Arts Association), to take classes at the university or the community college, to work on environmental issues (there is a community garden out at the university farm, for example), or or to sell baked goods at the Farmers' Market.
It is a quiet, lovely town in the summer. And I am glad to be here to relax and breathe. To walk, and just hang out.
And I am looking forward to our excursion out on the lake on a pontoon boat at 1 or 2 in the morning to enjoy the meteor shower in August. I am hoping it will be clear. For the last two summers, we had one clear night and one socked in. Perhaps with a return to warm (hot) weather eventually the thunderstorms will slow down and it won't be so soggy.
I just hope that eventually the cicadas will go back to showing up only in the first week of July, and the lightning bugs will not show up before June second.