The Ramblin Scribe

It’s been a long hot summer already - and only last Thursday was officially the first day of summer! East Tennessee is usually THE place to be in spring. Of course, this year we had that deep dip into below-freezing temps that resulted in only about a week of the beautiful first spring blooms. Bradford Pear trees, redbuds, forsythia, tulips, pffft, and they were gone. Even the tender first green leaves on many trees couldn’t take it. They shriveled up and turned brown. One unexpected benefit of the cold spell - the millions of flying seed pods from our silver maples shriveled up and didn’t cover the yard as usual for several weeks.

But the trees survived and lush green leaves now greet us each morning. Now we’re in the midst of a dry spell, though deep sources of moisture and enough rain has fallen to keep them green. Much of the grassy yards and meadows are showing their lack of water though. And hayfields are not producing the hay needed for farm animals come winter. So prayers and rain dances would be much appreciated.