The hot days of summer offered some of the best times as a family during the 16 years that we educated our children at home. On the farm in North Carolina, we had a pool that was twelve feet across with two-foot sides -- deep enough for children and the occasional parent to splash and play.
Today was 96 degrees in Augusta County ... just the kind of summer day that we used to enjoy on the farm. Back in those days, while the kids splashed in the pool, I sat at the picnic table under a nearby tree working on lesson plans for the upcoming school year. Across the rolling countryside, the Brushy Mountains, foothills of the Blue Ridge, could be seen in the distance.
Those days are cherished memories in my mind. I can almost hear the drone of the cicadas in the summer heat and smell the chlorine from the pool as the kids laughed and played with floats and underwater toys. A large towel spread out on the grass was a place for them to get out of the water and warm up as I read from one of the many books we enjoyed throughout the years. Reading out loud was a joy to me ... listening while watching a grasshopper munching a blade of grass was a joy to them.
Summer ... childhood ... they seem to go hand-in-hand. Sometimes the simple things make the sweetest memories....
1 comment:
Your farm life sounds a bit nicer than mine--way toooo hot for me right now. HA HA We also live on a farm and homeschool, but our pool is empty since we don't have a flat enough area to put it on. The geese did enjoy drinking from it when we had it up though. One good thing for me is I don't have to put tons of time into making lesson plans because I use Time4Learning and they make them for me. Whew! I also use Teaching Textbooks and some unschooling life learning along the way too. Thanks for sharing your sweet memories with us.
Joyfully,
Jackie
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