DRAGONFLY SUMMERS ...THAT FLUTTER BY

That seemed a likely title for a quilt of tropic colors made out of jelly rolls with a design sufficiently vague as to split its personality between dragon or butter fly-bys. Once you've tried a jellyroll, you can't get enough, right?

Summer is upon us. The front balcony lends itself to dreams and memories -- family reunions, visits from grandchildren, trips to Pocahontas County, fried chicken picnics, blackberry cobblers, lemonade and iced tea, homemade ice cream, fresh green beans and vine-ripened tomatoes. Especially tomatoes. Yes, I'll take it all! Nothing greedy about me...

This is one of those special summers that is to include a brand new experience for Teelside acres: A Grandson's wedding. Of course we're elated that the bride and groom chose to be wed under our very noses – out in the meadow in front of our own favored cove where two woodsy hillsides meet and form deliciously deep shades under sycamores, dogwoods and poplars as a backdrop. Perhaps there will even be enough water in the stream to add its melodies to our Joy and Love and Worship. A thrilling prospect!

Meanwhile, lots of plans are afoot. The stage is to be set with arches, arbors and benches for seating. Several trees are ringed for cutting (their towering over the Barn have made DH uneasy for a while now) and their trunks will be cut in sections to serve as posts for the benches. Plans were drawn by the groom for arches, etc.; he will return to complete the central arch, but has agreed to trust his Grandfather with some prep work. Grandfather’s tools and noggin will be hummin’ soon.

As for yard work, it may take every week between now and mid-July to trim the premises all around. Indeed we should solicit all 13 grandsons as groundskeepers the week previous. (That would be a dozen trimmers and Abe as water boy). After the festivities, wedding trappings will be relocated to cove or orchard or yard or recycled to woodsheds for burning. Either way they should serve as reminders of the new snapshots for the family album that will warm our hearts and hearth in days ahead.

The best part of this – short of having family together, which is always just the very best part of anything – is the knowledge that all the work and plans are in other capable hands. I get to sit on the front balcony, drink iced tea and love every minute of it as it flutters by.