Finally! Several Days With No Rain!

There were quiet showers in the small hours of Sunday morning. I woke, turned on my pillow toward the open curtains of the west window, to a solid wall of white fog beyond the glass. The tree tops at the lower edge of the sloping meadow were veiled, obliterated. 

Dislodging slumberous cats, I clambered out of bed, padded around to close the window against the heavy damp. The digital weather reader on the living room wall gave the outside temperature at 70 F. with a humidity count of 96 per cent.

Glancing through the window onto the east porch I could see the hummingbird feeders were empty. With Rosie-cat at my heels I went out to collect them and discovered a female hummer beating against the inside of the screen. 

During our first two summers in this newly built house the porches were open. Hummingbirds sometimes darted in past the feeders hanging from the deep eaves of the porch. When the area was later screened, we cut a slit high up in the screen so I could reach the feeders. Over time the cut edges of the screen have rolled back and at least once a season a hummer flits through. The length of cheesecloth pinned along the opening in early summer was now tattered and no longer a deterrent to an unwitting tiny bird.

We've learned that a bird trapped inside the porch is only able to fly upwards toward the ceiling. 

Jim made a few futile swipes with cupped hands, then directed me to fetch his cap. 

With the hummingbird gently corralled by his cap he could scoop her up and toss her through the slit in the screen, none the worse for an adventure.

I hastily pulled a gridded plastic liner from a kitchen drawer; With that fastened over the slit we hope the hummers will stay on their side of the screen.

It was a day of fitful sunshine--but it didn't rain!

I wallowed about in the damp garden picking green beans, muttering grievances at the devastation wrought by by the invasion of Mexican bean beetles. I smash the greasy yellow larvae on the leaves, scrape off the clusters of tiny orange eggs each time I pick beans, but the infestation this season is bad.

Jim brought in melons and corn, went back out to dig potatoes, a muddy task accomplished over three mornings this week. The potatoes are smaller than other years, but the tops were long down and with the ground so wet it was time to lift them.

As the temperatures climb toward 90 F. by mid-mornings, we come inside to clean up and eat the first meal of the day at nearly noon.

Stepping outside for any chore is to be clobbered with a steamy blanket of humidity and heat.

We eagerly anticipate summer and gardens--by late July we are 'over it!'

My sunflowers were in regal full bloom when the storms belted through.

The tallest stalks went down, roots heaved from the soil.

In several of the black bins fat white mushrooms have colonized.

To close with a cheerful note: sheets and summer bedspreads laundered and pegged on the back porch lines! Humidity is such that the linens needed 15 minutes in the dryer to finish, still, folded and piled on closet shelves the sheets retain that scent of outdoors.

 

End of July: Chaos in the Garden

I began this post on July 31st, thinking to do a wrap of weather and projects. 

Photos refused to load from my Canon camera to desktop PC in spite of several attempts. I did manage to load them onto my recently purchased and set up Dell laptop  and from there onto a blog draft, although not in the order that I selected.

Being rather persistent [even without a clear idea of what I'm attempting] I made a late evening repeat of plugging the camera into the PC--photos loaded but with a different format which seemed to indicate that 'Microsoft' had updated/installed a change. Not that I authorized such a thing! When something works, why must it be continually tweaked?  

Not surprisingly, July was hot and humid--a blend of weather that leaves me less than energized. The rather unusual factor this year was frequent rain; 

The past two weeks have featured brief but tempestuous T-storms with bouts of gusty wind and pummeling rain. 

We lost internet and land-line for a day due to storms, and there have been frequent power blips which result in going through the rooms to reset digital clocks.

Jim departed on the 22nd for a week with his twin brother in Wyoming, returning on the 30th--retrieving his pickup at M and G's in time to drive home through a downpour.

I set myself a perhaps unrealistic roster of 'things to do' while I wasn't tied to regular meal prep.

Out of bed between 6 and 7 each morning to begin the routine tending of the cats, some minimal cleaning and tidying, refilling the hummingbird feeders.

My indulgence was enjoying Kate of The Last Homely House [you tube] while sipping a half cup of cream-laced coffee or a mug of tea sweetened with honey. 

One of the tasks tackled while on my own was cutting back achillea and the New England asters which have taken over the raised bed along the east wall of the house. These plants haven't been a good fit for that area as they grow too tall and then lean over the edge of the bed, dropping seeds which sprout between the bricks of the walkway. I pruned and weeded, pried up dandelions and other pestiferous things that have overtaken the graveled area near the steps.

The humidity was punishing even with an overcast sky.

A cloudburst drove me inside before I could cart off my pile of weeds.

The cleared walkway, rain-drenched. 

Everything in this raised bed needs to be cleared out: the blackberry lilies, asters, blue prairie flax,, all raised from seed, the achilleas purchased at my favorite nursery. 

Zinnias in the tubs are this year's seedlings, some started in my little greenhouse; others self-sown into the  gravel walkway were carefully pried up and tucked into pots and tubs.

A few seedlings of coneflower hastily stuck into the south-east retaining wall strip have multiplied thuggishly. 

Red-orange seems to be the prevailing color for the zinnias.

Signet marigolds, my preference for their ferny foliage and dainty blooms, didn't germinate this year either from saved seed or from the remainder in last season's packet. 

These French marigolds were rescued from the Wal Mart garden center and coaxed back to health.

A stalk of Joe Pye Weed sprang up at the edge of the fire-damaged hybrid magnolia that still stands near the site of the former owners house [which 'mysteriously' burned to the ground two years before we bought the property.]

I first noticed this in tight bud on one of my dog-walking rounds and have delighted in marking its progress.

I feel over-whelmed by the garden. Jim has valiantly tilled, strung electric fence around his sweet corn. I have battled the horrid yellow larvae of the Mexican bean beetles, bent over rain-pummeled plants to pick the beans. The earlier crop, maturing before we had frequent rain, were lacking in tenderness.

While Jim was away, racoons spent a night feasting on sweet corn--strangely, only the one night.

I wallowed about in the mud, picking corn, discovering cucumbers that had fattened beyond appeal, harvesting green peppers, Carolina Gold tomatoes.

I sorted the good veg into two containers which went with me to church to be given to those who don't have gardens.

The first sunflowers to bloom were the volunteers from last summers scattered seeds.

Goldfinches have been flitting among the heads anxious for the seeds to mature.

Dwarf sunflowers, this season's planting on the far edge of the garden, photo taken Wednesday before two more storms swept through. 

Most of the sunflowers have been toppled, uprooted or the stalks broken.

I've picked beans from the second planting, my third planting struggles in the mud.

Tomatoes and cucumbers must be rescued from wet ground, melons brought in before various 'bugs' can drill into them.

Jim has revived the electric fence, taken over the corn harvest.

I've canned salvaged green beans and tomatoes--feeling that the yield was scarcely worth the labor.

My real accomplishments for July were projects other than gardening.

There's been a power blip as I typed this. 

It hasn't stormed since mid-morning, but there has been so much wind and rain recently that water-logged branches fall on power lines--at least that's what we are telling ourselves.

Its been a strange month!

What will August bring?