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.