What do I like about summer here in the North State?

Let me count the ways … But it is not the extreme heat! Our moderate climate — barring the triple digit temperatures — is quite pleasant.

Our gardens flourish this time of year, although tomatoes are late. My garden is producing fine squash, cucumbers, and I had some beautiful boysenberries, strawberries and cherries in late June.

My upside-down tomato plant is just now giving me medium-size fruit. But the lovely mix of flying insects I can't define is plaguing my deck. They cling to the cooler pads like ducks on the lake.

I've asked the friendly hardware experts in the plumbing departments at numerous stores and they don't have a solution to my problem. So, I flushed the system, added cooler-freshening agents and pet-children friendly, fragrant flying insect spray to the back side of the cooler to little avail. I think the wet spring created this monster like it does periodically after an El Niño-type season.

I am hoping these critters will run their course and soon disappear as the volumes seem to be diminishing. Anyway, I am seeing less and less of them.

Okay, enough on bugs.

Last week I visited one of the local farmer's markets only to discover each grower had tomatoes held hostage at $3 a pound. Whew! That's a bit steep for me, but I bought three tomatoes for $4. Obviously, they weren't huge. Apparently the lean crops pushed the price upwards — the ol' supply and demand concept.

I'll have to go to my rural grower who has beautiful tomatoes for 50 cents a pound until the farmers' markets settle.

Then, I found some lemon cucumbers priced more fairly and took home a bag.

The one thing about farmer's markets these days is that they have more than produce. You can find homegrown honey, baked goods, yard plants and shrubbery as well as a variety of handcrafted items.

If you are looking for a special gift, it's a good place to find the unique. I've heard that one market place for growers even features a local chef demonstrating specialties that can be prepared for a main dish, side dish or dessert. These demos are held at a specific time Saturday mornings at Redding City Hall. I'm planning to check that out.

It's been too hot to ride horses these days, so mine are out on pasture until mid-fall when our beautiful North State weather will re-appear. Actually, once we get past August, the evenings should start cooling down making for pleasant mornings and tolerable afternoons.

But, I like it here. My family came in 1949 and we've seen some monstrous amount of change.

This year Lake Shasta is full again! Hopefully it will stay that way so the resorts can recoup their losses from previous years when the shoreline resembled the Sahara Desert. Not good for house-boating.

While one of my grandson's is away visiting family, I took his turn and mowed my lawn the other day. It was the first time I have mowed it in four years. Grandsons can be handy little dudes.

Anyway, he hadn't informed me that the lawn mower lost its self-propel mode and I got a real workout that drove me to my friend's swimming pool that afternoon where I cooled down. It's great to have a friend with a swimming pool when you don't have one of your own. For me it's either driving to the lake or going a few blocks and that makes much more sense to me.

The good ol' summertime swimming activities bring many to the lake and creeks around here. My one bone of contention in that is the recreationists that visit Clear Creek off Highway 273. They are inconsiderate in the way they park vehicles and the health issue must be insurmountable.

Trash is also left behind by the users for somebody else to clean up. There are no rest-room facilities at this location where droves of swimmers gather. With so many using this area, I am surprised the health department hasn't stepped in to address it.

As kids we used the swimming hole not far from our homes. But there were only one or two of us and we could easily get back home on our bikes when nature called.

It's unfortunate that some of our good ol' summertime activities have been tainted.