52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Summer

Week #28 – Summer

Week 28: Summer. What was summer like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.

Summer meant hot weather and swimming, my parents had bought a lake lot at Twin Lakes in north Idaho, and we built a cabin on the lot, so nearly every weekend in the summer we headed for the lake. My sister and I would swim, fish, go boating, and later on water skiing. Usually June was cool and by July 4th the lake would warm up to the mid 70s and be a great lake for swimming. By August it would usually hit 80 degree water. We are still in an area with low humidity, so a nice warm lake to swim in is wonderful in the summer. We also live in an area with a lot of fresh fruit, so mom canned and froze almost any fruit in season, so nice to open a jar of canned peaches in January or a container of raspberries from the freezer, mmmmmmmm. We usually had a garden also so fresh vegetables and some were canned or frozen, but a lot never made it to the house.
Hot weather also meant we stayed outside a lot and with my fair skin and no sun screen then I got sunburned a lot. Mom sprayed us with McNess spray that killed the burning, but I still pealed a few times before I finally tanned enough to not burn. So I wore a t-shirt nearly all day in the water or not, and that helped. My sister had darker skin that tanned real fast so she seldom got sunburned. Today I live with sun screen in the summer.

Now above I kept saying usually, for this summer has been very cold and wet, our first 80 degree day was late in June this year, while it usually in May or even April, and we did not hit 90 till July this year about a month later than usual.
The picture below is out my back door looking at my rain gauge, it has over an inch of rain. The white pile in back is hail that ran out of my rain gutter and piled up. This picture was taken on June 2 and the storm was June 1st. I was so surprised that the pile of hail had not melted yet, and there was still some left on June 3.