I don't today, but some days I do - like last night as I was looking at pictures from home… sitting on my bedroom floor with a pair of scissors and a scrapbook - the kind my mom used to use. I smelled summer… 

Mourning doves. The rope swing hanging from the Great Oak and the feel of its trunk beneath my bare feet. Fields of young wheat plants, each slowly stretching, reaching for the sea of sky. Our farm in Northern Minnesota - slipping into Canada, barely hanging onto the States. 

Gophers on gravel roadsides. Burning the ditches. Burning the fields. The sun fading in the sky through a ceiling of brown smoke. The smell of a hot combine. Ditches full in the springtime (because no one burned them in the fall). 

Kittens in June. Fireworks in July. Corn on the Cob in August.

The way the whole farm seemed to rest Sunday mornings early in the summer, and how Harvest meant Sabbath came later. 

Walking to the edge of the driveway to get the mail (the sun on the morning side of the sky), sometimes meeting the mailman, who always drove on the wrong side of his car. 

Mom in one of her flower gardens. On knees that turned everything green (and gold and violet, yellow, red, and white). A smile to her three children playing with the water hose. A walk to the garage for the lawn sprinkler. Then we had fun. 

Dad made a swing set for my eighth birthday (strongest swing set north of Texas). Painted it brown. And again, Mom's planting a tree. Dad said we're going to build a new garage this summer - put the old one where Grandpa's used to be. Grandpa… the king who gave birth to this kingdom… wish he could see it now. Wish Grandma Alda was still praying those prayers for her grandchildren (Lord knows we need it!). Perhaps I'd be married by now, starting a little kingdom of my own…