The trees surrounding our house have spread their canopy over the entire deck. I feel as though the deck is a tree house these days and the warm days remind me once again that we are experiencing the dog days of summer. It’s almost like living in south Texas.

Well, maybe not. I think it might be just a degree or two cooler here. This is also the time of year when we regretfully must keep a keen eye out for those dreaded forest fires.

Today, I’m sitting on my deck thinking about the hot summer days I spent as a young girl living in Arkansas. Not many folks had air conditioners in their homes.

If one was lucky, they could afford a unit to fit into a window of their home. Then, they had to pay every bit of $18 to $20 a month to run the darn thing. Fact is, we had a small oscillating fan and were thrilled to death that it kept the air stirring.

I would take my quilt and lay it at the back door where I was sure some breeze would find its way to cool me.

There were nights when the kids in the neighborhood would gather in my backyard where we would spread our quilts out on the cool grass and search the skies for various constellations. One by one, we would fall asleep and have happy dreams until the sun came up the next morning.

One year I spent my entire summer in the country visiting my aunt and uncle. They lived on a farm at the end of a very long dirt road outside the small town of Shady Point, Okla. I was in heaven when I was at their house. My uncle would let me go to the fields with him as he planted peanuts, hoed peas and plowed. That was the summer I got as brown as a peanut. Everyone was amazed that I enjoyed being out in the fields so much.

Payday came when the weather cooled down and it was time to harvest the peanuts. In the evenings my aunt would fire up the wood stove, take some peanuts put them in a pan and shake it until the peanuts were parched. We would keep a careful watch on them as they popped to make sure they didn’t burn.

To wash them down, my aunt would stir up a big pitcher of ice-cold sweet tea for us. After our day was over, my aunt would tuck me in a big featherbed she had in a room behind the kitchen. I can still feel the dirt under my bare feet as I roamed through the fields, still smell those peanuts as they parched in the oven of the wood stove, and still feel the comfort of that featherbed.

One day, my uncle was going down “in the holler” and I told him I wanted to go with him. He was reluctant because, as everyone knows, the mosquito is the state bird of Oklahoma and the “holler” was full of mosquitoes. But, I begged and pleaded with him until he finally said I could tag along.

He dipped a bandana in some creosote and tied it around my neck before we set out for the “holler.” I didn’t get very far. He was way ahead of me when those big black mosquitoes literally covered me from head to toe. I turned and scrambled back to the safety of the farmhouse where my aunt doused me with some of her homemade potion to relieve the itching.

These dog days of summer may seem long and hot, but they will soon give way to the long, cold days of winter.

Yet there’s still time to make a summer memory or two, or as they say in the south, “make hay while the sun shines.”

Email Betty Heath at begeheath690@aol.com.