Chasing Summer Sunbeams: A Summer Blog Tag

Dear Everyone.

The last (unless we are blessed with an Indian Summer, of course!) few summer sunbeams are getting ready to trade places with the golden rays of the autumn as I write this...

But, in hopes of getting this up before they actually up and make the switch, here I am scribbling away this fine morning! 

Because Summer Sunbeams are slightly essential to the tag at hand, as you can see above. This comes to be through Cecilia of the blog Craft, Coffee And Cake (Thankyou, Cecilia!!) kindly tagging us back when we were all still in the depths of summertime! In other words, many moons ago😬Yes, I am not the most efficient at Getting Blog Posts Up... However DID you guess that??!  But anyway ;) At loooong last...

Annnd since we're dashing just a little this morning, on to the rules! (Which every Properly Conducted Blog Tag must have, you know.)

Rules

1. Acknowledge who tagged you!

2. Answer the questions!

3. Tag friends!

4. Have fun!
   
   *Julie arrives, stumbling in looking wildly disheveled, is gasping for breath...*

1. What's a book you read with summer vibes?
   Emi ~ Ooh, let's make it I Want To Go Home by Gordon Korman. This one is a staple at our house, a summer camp special with the most hysterically deadpan main character.... Who, it so happens, is good at absolutely everything, and doesn't like doing anything XD He is the also one who Wants To Go Home, (along with his sidekick, who mostly just goes along with his plans, even when it gets them both put on Garbage Detail for longer than they'll even be at camp.) and tries his best to do exactly that all summer. Throw in a beaver, a couple of fed-up counsellors, and one Harold Greene, (and his socks. You might try looking in the pea soup for those, preferably before you take a bite...) and you have the recipe for quite the summer😂
   Julie ~Didn't read much this year. Wrote a lot, though! I did read a ton of Winnie the Pooh, which is very summery, so there ya go. XD
   
   

2. If you could travel anywhere this summer, where would you go?
   Emi ~ Lots of places, but honestly, it would be a collection of visits! There's a place in Manitoba that particularly sticks out, and lots of them in the States.... That would turn into such an All Over The Place trip, I'm telling you😄
   Julie ~Somewhere quiet and lonely, with tall pine trees and cool, strong wind and sunlight and rushing water, and a log cabin just for me.
   
   

3. What's a poem or quote that reminds you of summer?
   Emi ~ Rudyard Kipling's The Glory Of The Garden. I've only just discovered it, (okay, yes, for the very purpose of the tag XD) and I love the way Kipling's poems roll off the tongue.... It is also undeniably summery! Because gardens and summer go, y'know.
   Julie ~ One of my favorites of all time... and it always inevitably makes me feel like crying... "We didn't realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun." -Winnie the Pooh. For me it has such a bittersweet tang to it, the feeling of past beautiful summers...
   
   

4. Describe your favorite summer memory.
   Emi ~ Mmmmmm.... Playing with all my cousins in the warm, dark August evenings.... ( The darkness making our games that much more fun, it seemed like.) Playing Three Rounds Around The House, or other games that had a goodly amount of running and hiding in them were particularly thrilling played that way ;) It always seemed like just when we were all having the most fun, it would be time to go😄
   Julie ~Bonfires. With the people I love most, being two other families... one all girls and one all boys. We used to sit around the fire till all hours of the night, just laughing. Talking too, but mostly laughing. I don't get nights like that anymore, life being the horrid thing that it is, but they're among my most shining, golden memories.
   
   

5. Your ideal summer is filled with _______, _________, and _________.
   Emi ~Plenty but plenty of time to scribble, just as much in which to traipse my fill around the hills and up in the forest... (Not to mention on the river!) And campfires in the evenings with all of my People around them. That sounds like an Ideal Summer to me!
   Julie ~Plenty of peaceful alone time in which to write with, the aforementioned bonfires at least once a week, and being with a certain person whom I am missing very much (and I sound awful cynical today, I should stop... O.o)
   
   

6. What is your favorite summer food?
   Emi ~Hmmmm🤔 You know, I think I must not be much of a proper foodie, because I always have such a hard time with food questions XD BUT I just had a saving thought here, and I'm going to say Rhubarb Dessert.... It's like a Rhubarb pie with meringue overtop, and it is SO GOOD. Though the simple answer would have been a handful of sun-warmed Saskatoon berries... Ohhh, girls, there is nothing like them!! And IF you didn't all live so terrifically far away, (and also if Saskatoon Season were not quite so Over yet,) I would come bearing basketfuls and insist you try them!
   
   Julie ~Cucumber salad, the lovely, refreshing stuff. We have it EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. during summer, and I never even begin to get sick of it... XD
   
   

7. Favorite summer activities?
   Emi ~Ooh, tubing behind a boat out on the river, exploring the woods, all that kind of thing.... And taking care of flower gardens when I have them😜
   Julie ~Standing outside at night and staring at the stars, feeling the silence and letting the wind blow through my hair... and then a grasshopper or some equally dreadful thing inevitably lands on me, ending the peaceful scene with wild howls from Yours Truly... XD
   
   

8. How do you usually celebrate 4th of July?
   Emi ~Simple answer for this one!! By reading the blog posts of my friends stateside ;) Cuuuuuuz I happen not to be an American, and so very few fireworks get set off on the 4th out here XD
   Julie ~With plenty of history. I love to watch The Story of a Patriot from Williamsburg (SOMEONE TOOK IT OFF YOUTUBE, HOW DARE THEY) and read the Declaration of Independence, and of course the Liberty or Death speech. I listen to fife and drum music half the day, and although I don't wear jewelry normally, I can't help but wear my reproduction sons of liberty medal that day... XD and then of course I go to fireworks and I LOVE them.
   
   

9. What's a song that reminds you of summer?
   Emi ~River Bank, by Trevour Panczak. Ahhhh, the deliciousness of a cold water (that part is VERY important, the cold water is.) Jackfish fried in a cast iron frying pan over a campfire...
   

   
   
   
   Julie ~The Next Step is Love by Elvis. Love that song, the imagery is epic, and it always makes me feel happy in a summery sort of way...
   
   
   

10. What are you most excited for this summer?
    Emi ~ Well, up until a little bit ago the answer to that was the local Ag Fair! Especially the Bench Show section, and it's all just such a fun time... (Fun fact, did you know that in Canada, 1st place ribbons are red? Another fun fact, I didn't myself until an American, an AMERICAN, mind you, told me about that... So XD Apparently she got it from Mrs. Lynde herself, so it must be true, mustn't it??) As long as it's not too terrifically hot that day XD But also not rainy, so y'see, I'm just the TEENIEST bit picky like that. (It was just a leetle near to toppling off the fence into the Extremely Hot side of things, but I stuck to the shade when I needed to cool off, and so still managed to enjoy the whole thing immensely ;)
    Julie ~Heheh... I'm not actually a summer person. I honestly couldn't wait for it to be over so I could get to fall and school and... here we are at the end of it!! End of summer, I mean. YAY FALL
    
    And there you have it! I feel like Julie was being the more eloquent of the two today, with her tall pines and log cabins, (AND Winnie The Pooh, to boot!) but we shall see if we can't call this a wrap on both sides ;) Thankyou again, Cecilia!
    And as for whom we shall tag... Well, I don't know a very great many people that have yet to be tagged for this, but I WILL try my hand at finding a few just for this😜Will three fit the bill? We'll say they will, because the Busiest Season Of Them All has just officially begun today, and if I don't get this post up now, it may have to wait til summer is long, long over XD
    So anyway. My tag-ee's are as follows!
    • Caroline Bingley of Truths Universally Acknowledged • Autumn from over at Shades Of Art • Hadassah from sassy & sunny
    Sorry to leave you so little summer to do this in, girls, but maybe September can play Indian Summer for us, and help things along that way? Anyway, here's hoping, for the sake of the tag and the commencing harvest both😂
    Signing off,
    Emi
    
    
    PS. This post was supposed to come with a lot of nice pictures in it, but time keeps escaping me to greater and greater extents... And since I DO really want to have this up before August is quite over, and cannot see the future being the least particle less busy than the present... I'm going the practical, if boring, route of simply sticking it up exactly as is. With the one little clump of pictures almost at the end and all. I do hope it isn't TOO visually displeasing this way, but if it is, I do hope people don't keep reading all the way down to here ;) T'isn't a requirement, you know, not even for propriety reasons, and you would be readily forgiven for it ;)
    
    PPS. One more thing, for those of you that DO read down to this point... *Lookin' at you girls here :P* As I ever so briefly mentioned up top, (though I forget exactly how briefly that even was XD) things are picking up speed in the Day-To-Day here, and I shall be merrily helping away with harvest time for, say, the next month or so here... And this may not be conducive to the timely answering of comments and emails😬Just so you have a wee heads-up before it happens, because it WILL by the looks of things, be going on for quite a while here XD