Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer Blog is having a give away based on your favorite things about summer. To enter go here http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/2008/06/the-giveaway-to.html.
Here is my entry…
“My favorite thing about summer is the lightning bugs that come at dusk in the later part of June. I can picture my 3 daughters (who are now mostly grown) running around the back yard, catching these prizes in jars with holes poked in the lids.
Several years ago, my next door neighbor (another little girl) came over one evening and caught me a jelly jar full of lightning bugs. She was so pleased because she thought I really loved lightning bugs – but what I really loved was a little girl in my back yard catching lightning bugs!” 
I saw my first fire flies the other evening while I was sitting on our front porch with April (MOPS Mom mentioned below). Immediately the memories came back of little blond haired girls, dirty and sweaty from playing, all excited because they saw the lightning bugs! They would run to me to get a jar and start the pursuit of the “lights” in our back yard. I can still hear them shouting out that they caught one. Or I see them helping each other to catch one. Then they would put some grass in the jar (to make it homey, I guess) and ask their Daddy to poke holes in the jar lid. I would encourage them to leave their treasure jars outside on the deck, but sometimes the lightning bugs would travel to their bedside. Little girls love to name things and so there would often be several names chosen for their new “pets”. The chatter until bedtime would be about the lightning bugs, their names and their jar homes. I imagine that their little eyes fell closed as they watch the lights of their catch dim.
The next morning, there would be disappointed faces when the lightning bugs would be leghargic — they no longer lit up and the fun was gone. The jars would be emptied (the bugs would be restored to the grass and fresh air) and stored on the porch for another evening. And in a few evenings, we would once again notice the dusk evening filling with spots of light and the pursuit would begin again.
Several years “my 4th daughter” (my next door neighbor little girl) had heard me say that I like lightning bugs and one evening she came over and caught me a jar full. The next morning, she was so disappointed that I had let them all go – I can hear her saying to me … “Miss Sandy, I thought you loved lightning bugs.” But I though to myself – “no honey, what I really like is little girls in my back yard catching them.”
Tonight I will probably have a backyard of fire flies and no little girls to catch them. Maybe, I wll go into the basement and find a jar and go catch a couple. But most probably I will sit on my porch and remember the precious moments of having small daughters in the summer time …
Photo found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamelah/23522284/
