Now that we’ve taken a few full strides into summer, the entertainment media is hot to take the pulse of the summer season. The flashy magazines are full of breathless sales reports, as is Section D of your local daily. Even staid old NPR can’t resist reporting box office figures and comparing them to projections. It’s quite the parlor game.

And so we know all about the summer movie season, with its popcorn blockbusters, sci-fi serials, and animated fare. We know about Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie, four-day weekends and per-screen sales.

And we know about the summer television season, with its splashy premieres, regurgitated reruns, and the endless spawn of reality TV.

We know about the summer music season, with Lollapalooza, Coldplay, and the latest White Stripes release.

We know about the summer book season, filled with chick lit, self-help, and a certain half-blood prince.

There’s even a summer driving season, in which demand for sweet crude rises and gas prices predictably spike, leading to lots of slam-bang action at the pump.

But I don’t spend much time at the Cineplex, and I rarely watch TV when a ball is not involved. My booklist is as backlogged as my CD shelf, and while I do plan to drive some this summer, I never get too worked up about the price of gasoline.

As such, the predictions and pronouncements of the entertainment media leave me flat. I still haven’t seen a breathless preview for the only summer season that matters: the sitting-on-the-deck-watching-the-kids-play-in-the-backyard season. And so, as a service to my readers, I’ll provide one.

In short, it looks to be a good summer for sitting on the deck watching the kids play in the backyard. The grass is green, and the clover too. The kids are fantastic, as always. The eldest is developing a mean swing with the wiffleball bat; the youngest is still fearless on the slide.

The garden is growing, as it always does around here. There’s weeding to be done, but it can wait. There’s been a lot of rain, but rain is good for the tomatoes. The sun is good for the basil.

The homemade fort is rising nicely in the back corner of the yard, lacking only a few railings and a bucket on a pulley with which to haul up action figures and peanut butter sandwiches.

The deck itself is solid, of course; you’ll want to stain it again before fall. There are tent caterpillars in the redbud (better get to those) and beetles in the mulch (leave ‘em alone). The lemonade’s in the fridge and beers are in the cooler. The peaches are on the counter, ripe and ready, but we could use someone to husk the corn. But no hurry. Sit and chat awhile. Watch the kids a bit.

The corn can wait. Cold beer?

Yup, the summer season is shaping up just fine. A certified smash, you might say.

(Jay Hardwig can be reached at smardwig@charter.net.)