When thrown into a fire, magnolia leaves make the best crackle. I learned this during the summer I turned eight. That was the summer I got stung on the head by a yellow jacket. My scalp itched and peeled for weeks.

Summers on the farm were the stuff of life; a time to explore the bluffs. Acres upon acres of forested land beckoned us to come and to be. To be still and silent, listening to the drip, drip, drip of the dew falling off the cow’s hoof trees. To step in rhythm to the whoosh of Mallard creek after a storm and the slow drip of the sulphur springs, buried treasure housing endless delights for two sisters looking for arrowheads and longing to quench their thirst.

Evenings were spent sitting by the bonfire after a hearty meal of country ham steaks and biscuits. Grandaddy and I would pour sorghum syrup on our biscuits. That was our thing; like a secret handshake or a code language that the two of us had mastered. Others dabbled in it, but we were connoisseurs of the sweet and sticky nectar. Grandaddy was like me: a sweet tooth and a mostly quiet spirit.

The fire would crackle and smoke with every magnolia leaf one of us would lay on the flames. Adults making grown-up talk, and the cousins poking at bronze embers glowing angrily, seeing who could make the biggest spark of copper stars go up from the pit toward the heavens.

Eventually, the flames would smolder down. Assured that they would die and cool off in the night, we would head back, my sister and I, to the guest trailer where we would stay on summer furlough to the U.S. Happily sauntering off to eager beds, ready to welcome us with softness, we would see how many tar bubbles we could pop with our feet on the paved country road between Grandaddy’s and the trailer, always on the lookout for rattlesnakes, honey bees and yellow jackets.