A robin in a bare tree..Two chairs for sitting...Three stumps decaying...Four flowers blooming...Six geese a-laying...just not in the egg sense of the word, since they’ve already done that part..Twelve fence rails...

On the first day of summer...

Please read this. . .

Just in case you wondering, and we’re sure you were, there are only something like 179 shopping days until Christmas. And, oddly enough, if the editor’s official calendar is correct, today is day number 179 of 2018.

Sorry to mention such things, but there had to be a way to segue into what we’re doing this week. Without further adieu, we’ll dive right into...

...The Twelve Days of Summer...

...with complete apologies to those who like Christmas,  summer and good writing...

...here we go...

...by the way, we’re going to skip repeating all of the verses. Otherwise, we’ll be here until Christmas. You can do that yourself. Or not.

On the first day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, a robin in a bare tree*.

On the second day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, two chairs for sitting (or sittin’, or, maybe, nappin’, if you prefer).**

On the third day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, three stumps decaying.

On the fourth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, four flowers blooming.***

On the fifth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, five lawns to mow. 

On the sixth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, six geese a-laying.

On the seventh day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, seven lumps of charcoal.

On the eighth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, eight burgers grilling.

On the ninth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, nine bluegill swimming.

On the tenth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, ten frogs a-leaping.

On the eleventh day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, eleven skeeters biting.

On the twelfth day of summer, Mother Nature gave to me, twelve fence rails fencing.****

(*Technically, the picture of the robin in a bare tree was taken during the winter. Do you how hard it is to find a partridge in a pear tree in Southern Illinois during the summer? Or, any other time, for that matter? For whatever it’s worth, we have a “dead” pear tree in our backyard. The “dead” tree, which has been “dead” for a number of years, continues to produce pears. However, we have never seen a partridge in our pear tree. Even at Christmas time.)

(**Technically, Mother Nature didn’t really give me the two chairs. Actually, they’re not even mine. But, they might be made of wood, and Mother Nature gave us the wood.)

(***As you may recall, or not, on the fourth day of Christmas, the gift was four calling birds. Or was it? Seems that the gift really might have been “four colly birds,” which are not some sort of flying dog. Information which your intrepid journalist discovered online explained that “colly” is an old-time English word for “black,” and was somehow connected to a coal mine. A colly bird, then, is a blackbird, as in four and twenty. I’m thinking that trying to sing “four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie, just would not fit into the whole true love gave to me thing.)

(****Just for the record, Mother Nature really doesn’t have much to do with lumps of charcoal, hamburgers or fence rails, either. However, she does have some input when it comes to the grass in our lawns, gooses, bluegills, frogs and skeeters.) 

Merry Independence Day. 

 

The Gazette-Democrat

112 Lafayette St.
Anna, Illinois 62906
Office Number: (618) 833-2158
Email: news@annanews.com

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