I have always loved summer evenings – some of my favorite childhood memories are of summer evenings playing with the neighbor kids, walking to get ice cream, catching lightening bugs and star gazing. Even as an adult, I love summer evenings, especially just at dusk when it’s not quite day and not fully night. There’s something magical about that time when the natural world begins to change as some animals go to bed and others come out. Have you ever seen bats emerging at dusk, darting here and there? Or watched a chimney swift circle a chimney that holds its nest and then dive into it? Living up north now, we can enjoy longer summer evenings too. My husband and I like to take a walk after dinner before it’s too dark. Sometimes we walk the neighborhood and sometimes we walk the jetty that goes out into the St. Croix River in the town near where we live. I love to see families out and about at that time of day.
Have you ever canoed at dusk? The photo I’m sharing was taken last fall in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. Campfires on summer evenings are just icing on the cake! Evenings can be the best time to fish too. And it’s a great time to watch deer and other animals in fields along country roads. Night sounds are different too – owls hooting, coyotes howling, frogs calling for mates.
The author enjoys sunset on a Boundary Waters canoe trip in Minnesota.
I hope you’ll take time to introduce kids to this magical time of day. You don’t even have to venture from your yard. Our neighbors next door have a fire pit and summer evenings the kids are playing hide and seek and roasting marshmallows over the fire. We’ve had a good crop of lightening bugs this summer too – along with mosquitoes. Make sure you aren’t missing out this summer on those twilight moments. And if you’ve put on the bug repellent, why not stay out to watch the stars emerge or the moon come up!
