Barefoot in June, dancing gingerly around the pinecones strewn about the path to the beach. Tenderfoot no longer by August, but it is high time to put on ones shoes again. Summer is over. Time to turn to the dark side again. Three months makes for a short season, what with three-quarters of the year in-between each.

Still it is a magical time. Come midsummer’s eve the sun only briefly sets. The Canadian soldiers dance from dusk to dawn. Theirs is a short life, made shorter by the solstice, living only for the day, for them there is no tomorrow. Nearby gulls get no rest at all and sleepless themselves, they ensure no one else within earshot does either, their calls after dark begin again all the earlier before dawn.

By late August, the days are noticeably shorter, the bugs much diminished and the gulls all but gone. So are most of the summer people too. Annual greetings and goodbyes have been made. By this time of year, summer vacations have all been spent and back to school thoughts are now foremost on people’s minds.

The lake and the beach are returning to those people who live by them year-round. But before I go up to the cabin, to pack up all my cares and woes, at the end of the last beach day, I turn and look back towards the lake. Still aglow from the setting sun, filtered through the trees, it lights my way home. One last look, one last photograph, to remember by. Then turning, like the leaves have already begun to do, I head up. Tomorrow, we head down state and then home again.