As I ran this evening along the path beside the lovely Cooper River, a shining gibbous moon was on the rise.  It seemed to pull me on, moving with me as I ran, never getting closer nor farther.  More than half, but less than full, it presented a beautiful picture in the sky. I got spellbound as I ran, but coming up to a busy intersection, I was snapped back to full alert state.  It was a subtle reminder, though, how the seasons are changing. There I was at 7:30 in the evening, and already the sun had set and the moon was clearly visible.   It has been warm this week, the warmest week of the summer.  I’ve been finishing my runs soaking wet from sweat.  When I take off my socks I can wring out a cup of sweat between the two of them.

The sound of cicadas would be impossible to describe to someone who had never heard one.  It is an unmistakable sound, though, and so typical for this time of year.  It is never one cicada, it is a crowd of male cicadas sending their messages to females that they are present and ready to mate.  The loudness of the song, and its constancy are remarkable.  As I ran along I listened for the much more delightful sound of a cricket chirping, but my search was unsuccessful.  If there was one it was drowned out by the blaring cicadas.

We are in the last throws of summer.  As the evening sky comes earlier, I am reminded that soon I will need to wear a head lamp.  While a definite safety feature, there is not much that is fun about wearing a headlamp.  It creates a sharply demarcated cone of visibility around my feet and a few yards in front of me, but shuts out the rest of the view.  Early morning runs on the weekends, also, will be dark, although made more pleasant by the lack of traffic compared with the evening weekday run.

Eating in the summer is always fun.  The fresh vegetables from local farms, the peaches, the tomatoes, and the small but significant harvest from our backyard garden make summer meals a festival.  My favorite, the blueberries, seemed to last particularly long this year.  I admit to being a blueberry addict.  I bought several ten pound boxes of them at the height of summer, and washed and froze them for my habit year round.

With colder days and longer nights, there is also an urge to indulge.  Football games with beer and nachos, colder temperatures driving up the appestat, and the diminishing supply of fresh garden produce yielding to potatoes, squash and other filling foods makes for a challenge against fitness.  With a marathon coming up in November, and my desire to be fit into the New Year, I must redouble my efforts at this time to stay the course, get in the runs, watch the calories, and not yield to temptations.  On the positive side, though, my hops are ready to harvest, and there will be another good Backyard Homebrew in the making in the near future.