Editorial

Ten Things To Do Before Summer Steals Away

10. Stuff yourself with every home-grown tomato, ear of corn, squash and cantelope you can lay hands on. Then make fresh peach ice cream to top it off.

9. Study the geometry of a spider web. See how some appear as circles, others funnels and still others Mobius strips stretching from tree to tree or even suspended mysteriously in mid-air. Become inspired for foul-weather knitting, crocheting or tatting.

8. Declare an outdoor emergency. Snatch every minute of the waning light and warmth. You’ll be better able to savor the specifics of late summer if loafing heads the terms of your emergency. Curtail the emergency only for rain or snow.

7. Eat outside while you can, perhaps immediately. Lay out a spread (See Nos. 10 and 3) on your own picnic table. Or, if you go out to dinner, don’t hesitate when the host asks, “Table inside or out?”

6. Extend your outdoor emergency after nightfall. Announce that you must spend the night in a tent, on a boat or on your deck under the stars.

5. Make a nature discovery. Find a piece of sea glass; a shark’s tooth; a cattail; a monster-sized jellyfish.

4. Those summer clothes? Lay ’em all out on the bed tonight and plan to dress cool. Because before you know it, your neighbors will whisper if they see you in white shorts, sleeveless dresses and open-toed shoes. (They’re whispering already, you say?)

3. Break your PB (personal best) in number of crabs devoured. Steam your own or, if you want them served up ceaselessly, buy a ticket for the Annapolis Rotary Crabfeast September 17.

2. Head into your yard with gloves, rake, clippers and plastic bags to yank out all those weeds, dying tomato plants and tree limbs from the last storm. Or forget it. Declare your property a nature preserve and move immediately to No. 8.

1. Don’t be tricked by the old Labor Day, End of Summer nonsense. Disregard the September 21 equinox except as an occasion for a party. Remember, half our boating season is still to come, and fall is the most beautiful time of the year in Bay Country.