From The Editor's Desk

Savoring the  shortest season

Dear Readers:

This week marks the nation’s 250th birthday. In celebration of Independence Day, towns across the North Country each bring their own pizzazz to their celebrations. 

Community members and business owners put effort into decorating floats and braving the usually blazing heat to travel slowly down the main thoroughfare, handing out candy and frozen pops to the crowds on the sidelines watching the parade. If you’re lucky, (or unlucky depending on your viewpoint) you might get a nice cooling spray from a fire engine as it passes by.

The July 4 holiday seems like the true start of summer. It’s all about shorts and sandals, and vegetables and fruits start popping up in earnest at local markets. This is also usually the first event of the season that offers grilled ears of sweet corn for sale.

To me, nothing says summer like grill-roasted sweet corn, freshly husked and slathered in butter.

I’ve been biding my time, neglecting my urge to buy it at the grocery store until Penny the Corn Lady makes her way up here for the season; afraid to spoil the first ear of the season on a lesser-quality cob. 

It’s funny how something you’ve been doing forever suddenly transforms into a tradition one day. Something that you took for granted your whole life suddenly becomes cherished. 

Yes, I’ve always enjoyed corn on the cob. Back in my early teens when I had braces, I was told I shouldn’t eat it because of the damage it might do to the metal brackets and bars contraption shaping my teeth, but my mom would chop it off the cob in sheets so I could enjoy it that way. Now — even though my brother can no longer refer to me as “Metal Mouth” or any of the other names attributed to those with primitive orthodontic torture devices glued to their teeth — it’s still a fun way to eat it. 

We recently got a case of Georgia peaches from the peach truck that rolls through town twice per summer. The back of our house smells of them as they ripen on our countertop before moving to the fridge. My husband checks in each day to see if I’m pulling my weight on the eating of peaches before they start to overripen — it’s a race against time to get through them before they go bad. 

The possibilities now seem endless, but in a couple weeks the stash will be running low and the offerings will be sad and shriveled. Time to turn the softening stone fruits into a pie or dessert of some kind to extend that sweet summer flavor just a little longer. 

It’s just a reminder of how short our summers feel stacked against the lengthy cold months, when bundling up to step outside even briefly is the reality and the garden has been reduced from that lush green landscape to sticks in brown dirt.

Summer is my time. The fresh corn, the juicy heirloom tomatoes that come out of the earth instead of a can, the peaches that drip juice down your chin when you bite them. The season is too short, so you have to take your time and try to enjoy it.

To me, summer is the time to sweat. Leave the AC units off, I’ll try my luck with summer breezes, ceiling fans and trips to the lake.