Summer Lamentations
Oh what a summer. And we are only a third of the way through it. I keep reminding myself that we are past summer solstice so each day is fractionally shorter than the one before—a week from today, daytime will be ten seconds shorter than today. That is a little something to hold onto.
Once again, my garden is full of surprises. An early surprise was a bunch of squash beetles. I got out there and squirted them with soapy water every day, but eventually it was clear that they were winning. I got a few squash before I threw in the towel. Once again, okra is doing very well for me, even though the giant grasshoppers have moved in. I let the chickens into the garden today to do whatever they could with the grasshoppers. One especially entertaining thing that has happened is a loggerhead shrike has impaled a giant grasshopper on our fence. I have not seen the bird come back to check on his prize yet.
Another garden surprise is the, I think, Hungarian wax peppers. I have tons of them, and I did not mean to grow them. The plants were labeled as black bell peppers. The grasshoppers are not eating those either, and I cannot say that I blame them. I bit into one of the early ones thinking it was a banana pepper—I was wrong. I’m contemplating making candied pepper slices with them to see if I can handle eating them like that.
Back to birds, I keep hearing a summer tanager, but I have not had even one glimpse of it. The neighborhood mockingbird must have finally found a girlfriend because he has stopped with his day and night singing. We have a mourning dove on a low branch right off the front porch who is sitting on her second clutch of eggs. She already successfully raised two babies earlier in the summer. The hummingbirds are hanging in there although we watched one sit on the back of the porch rocking chair for a solid half hour a few days ago, panting.
We go out in the early morning and late evening to get all outside tasks done. The middle of the day is for working inside and praying the air conditioning and electricity stay on. Even the outside dog is coming in during the heat of the day to nap in her crate. I find myself daydreaming about spending my summers somewhere cooler.
Here it is nine at night and still ninety-six degrees. Well, enough whining for me for now. Y’all all please be careful in this heat because it sure can be dangerous.