Summer Time Apples

After I bite the apple, I taste its crisp and sweet flesh. The apples on the tree hung down and were easily reachable for a small girl. No girl in Eastern Washington loves apples as much as I do. The other children were not weaker than I, but more muscular boys would roll down the hills screaming. I would pick the ripe red and fresh green apples from the large apple trees. I devoured the apples. My lips were smeared from the sweet juices of the apples, and my shoes were covered in sandy dirt and dust.

Then, I would race down the slope to the large log cabin.
I would run up the steps into the dark, musty interior and find my siblings and five cousins sitting around the large family table. Our time each summer only lasts so long. We loved the wild country of Eastern Washington, each for its own reasons. It was so different from the neat suburban towns where we lived and went to school.

Later, I climbed up the trail into the deep valley. Its brown and green colors reflect off my eyes, and large rocks and pebbles cover the path and rocky hills. I felt the warmth of the day, and I pulled my pink baseball cap further down my forehead and pulled the sweaty cotton checked button down around my body. I was trying to feel the cool air touch my sweaty skin. I impatiently kick the dirt with my tan cowgirl boots at my cousins playing in the long brown grasses.

Hear my mother calling us. “It’s dinner time, kids!”
I ran down the dusty trail toward the log cabin and found my aunts, uncles, and parents sitting on the porch.
“Where have you been.” They demand.
I pull off my tan cowgirl boots and wash my hands in the outdoor sink, washing away the dusty brown dirt from my fingers and arms.
“I have found a beautiful rock, Mom.”
I brought a particular rock to show you”. And the flecks of silver in the granite glimmer in the summer sunshine.