In Gallia county, junior fair week is the first week of August. It’s muggy and always as hot as summer ever gets.

By that time of year, you’ve more or less reached a rythym with the heat, it doesn’t hit you on your face the same way when you step outside. You just expect it now. The sweat trickling down your back, and on the side of your head doesn’t bother you as much as it did on the 4th of July.

You can sense that things are slowing down. It isn’t autumn yet by any means, but out of the corner of your eye, you can see that autumn is on it’s way. The corn is still growing, but it won’t get to get much taller now. No, it is spending all it’s precious energy on the swelling ears and the golden tassles.

Your skin feels a certain way too. Your bare feet don’t notice the prickles in grass anymore when you walk over the hill. The grass is not soft and spongy anymore, because it is tired from growing all summer long. When you mow it now, it doesn’t bounce back with those green sprigs the very next day, like it used to in May.

This isn’t the end of the summer of growth, it’s just the beginning of the end.