When it comes to lawn maintenance this year, “no-mow May” melded into “monsoon June” into “why-try July.” First it was too wet and now it’s too high. Nevertheless, on Sunday I did start scalping the yard with my noisy gasoline-powered Husqvarna weed whacker, at last clearing a path for our new puppy to go out and do everything puppies like to do. Last evening — taking a break from raising Cain with our peaceable old cat — I noticed him examining a bee on foxglove blossom, completely enthralled by being young and alive.

My parents had an acre of grass when I was a boy and it became my job to mow it starting at about age 10. Nowadays that might get you turned in for child abuse, but in our high mountain valley kids started running power equipment and driving tractor as soon as we could lift a chainsaw and reach the peddles. Anything else was unimaginable.

There was still plenty of time for goofing off. July never fails to set me thinking about hot, dry afternoons spent drifting down irrigation ditches out in the hay fields. These ditches were hardly wider than the old, patched inner tubes we used. We’d keep our eyes peeled for lazy old rattlers and couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about startling grasshoppers, who sometimes leapt from alfalfa stems to their deaths in the glacial water. We’d return home at dusk, nearly parboiled by the sun in front but with hypothermic behinds.

Play is an essential part of a child’s job, though not without risk. It is, for me, one of the sadnesses of modern life that I hardly ever encounter gangs of children while out walking on our world-class system of nature trails that wind through awesome state parks and national wildlife refuges. The absence of happy squabbling voices is disconcerting, as if all the birds and frogs quit singing. We’ve removed far too much of the wild from childhood.

School’s out for summer and so, too, should be our kids. Do them some big favors: Have them do meaningful jobs every day; tougher the better. And insist they get out with their friends and play. Our neighborhoods and the future will be better for it.

When it comes to content in this coming edition, we’ll have plenty of news, but I especially draw your attention to a package of remarkable LiDAR images of our part of the state. This technology shows in amazing detail what the terrain would look like without any trees or other vegetation.

As always, thank you very much for your support and many kindnesses. The Chinook Observer is a community project that depends on you.