Strategies for Beating the Summer Heat

We had some hot days recently and I’ve been utilizing every strategy I can think of to beat the heat. The easiest is to stay in an air-conditioned place, of course. But that isn’t always possible.

I keep bottles half-filled with water (and sometimes a splash of lemon juice) in the freezer that I can fill just before I got outdoors…helping stay cool (and hydrated) by always having cold water with me.

If it’s sunny, hats help. My favorite has a wide brim all the way around so it protects my face and the back of my neck from sunburn. Taking a little shade around with me is worth the price of hat hair for the rest of the day.

Wearing skirts rather than jeans or capris or shorts is cooler. It’s not practical for hiking in tick infested area…I wear thin pants that I can tuck into my socks for that. Sandals or flip flops are my shoes of choice if I can’t go bare foot

If the humidity is not high, taking a spray bottle to mist my face and arms helps (and I can use it to enhance spider webs and flowers for photographs). It’s not helpful at all if the humidity is high.

Ice packs on my neck or shoulders are helpful and I have some fabric covered ones that I keep in the freezer for hot days. They work even if the humidity is high!

Nature Photography with Belmont Summer Camp – Part 1

This is my third summer to lead a summer camp nature photography session for the Howard County Conservancy’s Summer Camp. Every year is different. This year the weather was perfect on photo shoot day. I am illustrating this post with pictures I took – the children took many more than I did and pushed the abilities of the camera’s they were using to the brink. There were two groups of campers. The younger group was the first to head out and elected to go the fastest route to the woods. Almost everyone took a picture of the path into the trees.

Looking up I noticed some spider webs high in a tree.

I took one picture since none of the cameras the children were using had enough zoom…but quickly moved on to things they could take: the root end of a fallen tree,

A tree that had fallen across a small stream and was too rotten to use as a bridge, 

Curls of grass as we headed back to the meadow, and

Caterpillars.

As we were heading back to the Nature Center we realized that the path through the cut grass contained a lot of ticks. It was tick-check time as soon as we got back to the Nature Center!

Rhythm of my Seasons

The Rhythm of my Days and Weeks were posted a few days ago. This post is about seasonal rhythms.

Clothes. I still move things from closet to storage and back twice a year (usually spring and fall…whenever the temperature changes enough). I don’t wear corduroy pants and sweaters when the weather is warm just as I don’t wear shorts, skirts and capri pants when it is very cold. Some things stay in my closet all the time – and they wear out the fastest.

Volunteering. Spring and Fall are when I spend the most time volunteering. Those are the seasons that the schools have most of their field trips and stream assessments.

Travel. My husband likes to do traveling in the spring and fall – and that is probably the time for most our travel…but it happens in the other fall and summer too so there might not be a season for travel.

Classes. There is more time for classes in the winter and summer. I’m always a little surprised that I enjoy them more in winter although I am not sure why.

Outdoor work around the house. There are chores that dominate in every season. Cleaning out and planting in spring. Watering and mowing in summer. Raking leaves in the fall. Shoveling snow in the winter.

Food. Pomegranates in December. Orange squashes and apples and pears and cranberries in the fall. Tomatoes and melons at the height of summer. Garlic scapes and strawberries in late spring/early summer. Yum (even though sometimes I buy them out of season because, these days, many are in season someplace in the world).

I still have not come up with any of my rhythmic habits that I want to change in 2017….but writing these posts has heightened my awareness of the rhythms…and confirming to myself that they are what I want them to be.