Heat, rocks, water: Summer is here

Looky there. The calendar says July 1.

But you knew that already. You've probably been outside yourself.

When summer arrives in Southeast Missouri, it doesn't hold back.

Bad news: Your utility bill will look like the national debt next month.

Good news: Those green tomatoes will finally turn red.

For several nights this week I was making needed modifications to the water feature on our patio.

Have I told you about the fountain?

For as long as anyone in our family can remember, we have been picking up rocks wherever we go as souvenirs of our travels.

OK. We're cheap.

Not all the rocks, however, were free. There's the 100-pound-plus chunk of a petrified tree older son purchased outside Petrified Forest National Park during a family vacation through the Southwest. Which is why we spent two days in Flagstaff, Ariz., while the rear end of our car got a makeover.

We have river rocks. We have mountain rocks. We have "Isn't this interesting?" rocks from the side of the road. We have rocks from Canada, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy and Greece. We have fossils. We have rocks ground down by glaciers and smoothed by fast-running rivers. We have big rocks and little rocks. Round rocks and flat rocks. We have rocks that only the person who picked them up knows why they are interesting.

Someday, perhaps a thousand years from now, archeologists will be excavating the Sullivan patio, and they'll come across this pile of rocks. They will scratch their heads, because they'll know right away that a bunch of these rocks are not from Missouri. So they'll call in some top-notch geologists. Together they will form learned conclusions, like: A meteor that struck the planet in 2005 had so much force that it threw rocks halfway around the globe -- and resuscitated mountain lions and ivory-billed woodpeckers long thought to be extinct.

I'm just guessing, of course.

The reason the rock/fountain project has taken so long is that it's hot as blazes, and there are approximately four tons of rocks involved. I am not exaggerating. I know what about half the rocks weigh, because I bought them, and you pay by the pound.

My wife is particularly proud of me, because it's in my genes that once you start something, you finish it. Now. Not later. Not when the weather's temperate. Not when it's convenient. Now.

But I have learned, in my age-advantaged stage of life, that staying alive is more important than picking up four tons of rock and setting them down over there when the heat index is over 100 degrees -- just so you can pick them up again and put them over here.

The problem is that there are pumps and hoses and filters and ultraviolet water cleaners that rely on the magic of electricity. Guess where my power source is. Bingo! At the bottom of four tons of rocks.

The cat, who has become patient either because of her aging process or because it's too darn hot to show any gumption, has watched this rock-moving jig I've been doing with great amusement.

I remember, as do many of you, when there was no air conditioning. We survived summers and looked forward to rides in the car with the windows down and our hands out the window.

The only rocks were in the field, and they were not collected on any patio that I know of.

Welcome, July and August, because September is right behind you.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.