the garden

Lunch when it's hot

 

Please click on the bowl to read all about it

Where smiles grow

i confess:
i was not at my best Wednesday morning
"stuff" was getting the best of me.
Gratefully, i'd made plans to take a little field trip with a friend
and worked hard as we drove together
to let go of the dratted gnat-like bothers still buzzing in my head.

Our goal:
to visit and ramble through a sunflower maze
the largest of its kind on the east coast
and just a few miles from our town.

What an absolute surprisingly delightful
experience this little morning outing turned into!

i've driven past very happy sunflower fields previous summers
and have various types in my garden ever year
but i've never before kept such intimate company
with literally thousands of them

i could not stop smiling

and admiring the various other visitors that were out with us that day

 

a pollen drenched soldier beetle

 

The farmer has sown millions of seeds
in succession
so that there will be glorious heads to visit for several more weeks
and now
we can examine them in all their stages
from bud to heavy heads laden with ripening seeds

John Parke (who is a project director with Audubon) and his son Aidan

explained that all of these are black oil sunflowers
and will be harvested and sold as bird seed locally
with support from the Audubon Society's very cool S.A.V.E. program

It was so much fun
and totally turned my head and day around
to spend ...was it really only an hour?
in such sweet company

 

it was only 75F this morning. at 5am.

i do apologize, dear visitor
and issue this alert:
this post contains a rather lengthy moan and groan about the unforgivable weather
However, after i vent i do share some more positive thoughts
and a pleasant photo or two. If you don't wish to indulge my rant
you can jump down to the photo for a few, more positive thoughts.
And now, the rant:

Yesterday, it was 109F in the parking lot of the movie theater when we came out at 2pm

it was 102F in the garden.

Outside, away from the unnatural "conditioned" air
it is difficult to breathe
shade offers no respite.
Nights are long and restless

This is simply not natural for our region.
It feels as though Hades has come, uninvited
plopped down with a greedy grin
and is refusing to leave until it has sucked all of the life out of
every living thing.

Standing in line at the deli i overheard a man say
"I'd take a week of snow and ice over this awful stuff."
i wanted to hug him.
Given that he was a total stranger
i resisted the urge and just gave him a grin and a nod instead.

i confess that i feel not one iota of sympathy for those who moan only
in rain or snow--and thereby reveal their utter ignorance for the needs
of the natural world around them.
Yes, of course i empathize with those who feel trapped, or threatened living in a climate they dislike.
But, i confess i find it difficult to voice my understanding when most are silent
during heat and drought.

i find the rote, endlessly chanted-from-every-outlet
"sunshine = happiness" to be utterly foolish and distasteful.
Those in this seemingly vast chorus are obviously blind and
do not see the large tracts of dead maples, oaks, ash and
other important native trees across the hillsides, fields
and mountains of the entire northeast.
Worse, if they do see them, they fail to comprehend the disaster those
skeletons warn us of.
News outlets never notice until conditions are desperate.
This widely accepted blindness, or ignorance--or just plain silence while the sun shines relentlessly--hurts me. i try hard not to, but i'm afraid i take it personally.

i write a garden column for our local daily
and i do my best to learn what i need to know about all of this
and to share it. i've written frequently
too frequently over the past decade
about my case of RSAD, "reverse seasonal affective disorder"
and i posted this public service announcement/warning on Facebook for
all those who live in my vicinity:
DO NOT utter the words "isn't this gorgeous weather".
We just might learn that looks can kill or maim.
It was my attempt at a sour joke after i'd come in from the smothering heat.

Writing publically about my distaste for hot weather
has given others permission to acknowledge their distaste for blistering summer heat.
Last spring, when it rained and rained and rained some more
nearly every week, for two months
we smiled, knowingly when we ran into each other.
A postal clerk whispered
"I know most people walk around miserable, but I love this."
When individuals stopped me to exclaim, "I can't believe how fabulous the roses were this year!"
i explained, "It was the good snow pack over the past 2 winters--and all that rain."
Most just stared back
slack-jaw
incredulous. "You can't be serious" in their eyes.

It's bad enough that my body revolts in temperatures above 80F
(i've experience one too many bouts of heat exhaustion in my attempts to "tough it out"
when i was hired to design, install and maintain gardens)
Even so, i could cope with being trapped indoors with the ac and fans running 24/7
i could read, play in PhotoShop, and haul the hoses around in the early morning hours
while Hades reigns
if it weren't for the fact that this type of heat destroys so much of what i love
out there (including wildlife)
where no one can irrigate.

Leaves from the beloved birch rain down as it attempts to protect itself from further loss of moisture. The running joke is that weather forecasters are always wrong, right??
i surely hope so, because--contrary to popular assumptions
i've lost more trees, shrubs and "hardy" perennials to summer
than any of the "harsh winters" that have come our way over the past 30+ years.

My heart leaped up when the dawn revealed an overcast sky
to shield us, if only a few short hours from the harsh sun.

OK. ,nuf of that. For today.
Thank you, dear visitor
(if you are still with me)
for listening and indulging me.
i do feel better for having expressed these feelings...even if you left.
Now...onto other things.

There are cheery blue chicory flowers
in a sea of lovely grass ignored by the men with their terrible mowing machines


 
and tropical plants in pots
like this Plumbago auriculata









The other very bright spot, The Movie
the final installment of the Harry Potter saga
was a very wonderful surprise
definitely not the disappointment i had expected after seeing the
very poor HP &DH part one.

i had determined that i would see the films
even tho the previous 3 had been disappointing.
It was my duty to sweet Jon
the nephew who is/was my best friend
and who got me hooked on the books.
An avid reader, the HP books were the only ones in the
fantasy genre he ever liked.
He had read them and listened to the audio versions several times
and was my source when i forgot details in books 4-6.
He laughed in a scolding manner when, at first, i mixed up
the names Dumbledore and Gandalf.
(Neither he nor i enjoy Tolkein. Sorry!)

While watching the boring HP & DH part 1
i could hear him saying what i was thinking, too
"that part of the book can only be read"
and
"Wow. They blew it at the end of the film. Hollow.
Devoid of the wrenching feelings of awe at the loss of Dobby."

Part 2. Completely different experience.
i was enthralled.
It was a satisfying conclusion to Harry's saga.
It's as if the filmmakers saved all of their heart for last.
i was especially moved with the marvelous artistry in the rendering of
that magnificent, tortured white dragon crawling up, up, up to his freedom,
Snape's petronus, and the revelation of his true character, and, of course, Harry's final battle.

It was simply a heart-full.
My sister, my nephew, my niece were all with me.
Just like when i read the book.

Even tho the heat from Hades slapped us in the face as
we opened the doors and left the theater to step out into blazing sunshine
(me, my sister and friend)
our full hearts carried us up and above
all the rest of the day.

So often, people get things so very, very wrong.
It felt so good to sit for 2.5 hours
carried away with people who got it right.

Hiding from the Sun

i play with the New Boy morning noon and night
(Yes, he finally has a name. More on him later...
when i can finally get a photo or 2. He is such a wiggle worm!)
work and play endlessly in photoshop
empty and refill the ice cube trays twice a day
make plans to go see a movie in the middle of tomorrow's heat
and at night
i sit in front of the fan
in the company of this new set of night lights.
(Just in case there is a ruckus in the night
i really don't wish to smash a toe, racing to see what New Boy
and Spike are up to)

So much more fun
don't you think
than the regular sort?

If i ignore it, will it go away?

i am usually very adept at avoiding reality when it suits.
However
there are situations and conditions the pull me up short
You, faithful reader friend already know what i'm about to say:

it's hot
Horribly so
and that's them saying it, not just me.

 i hate it hateithateithateit!!!
and it's supposed to be like this for 2 weeks

OKOKOK...
b.r.e.a.t.h.e......

i'm trying some self-hypnosis, can you tell?
and delving into the photo archives
in my attempt to avoid what it's doing out there.

Ah, yes
These were flowering in a gentle rain a week ago
(held the camera under my rain jacket)



the memories of that afternoon are flooding my senses

oops!
Wrong move: just glanced up and noticed the thermometer

 

 

i flee, i fly

The sun is a beast today.
Thin clouds are doing their best to protect us.

in my next life i wish to be a bird or a cat
so that when the incompatible weather (heat) arrives
i could fly away

Oh! let me be a chimney swift
and live my life on the wing
away, away up so high


or
like the purring fur ball that lives here
let me sleep all day
wake just long enough to stretch, eat a morsel, drink
stretch, then sleep until it's gone.


If i must be human
then let me
when the suffocating heat arrives
flee to a perfect little house
on an island beach at the lip of a shallow harbor

where the thermometer rarely touches 80 degrees F

Come June, i dash in and quickly splash out of the little sea at my door step


 
and in July it is delicously chilly at first but only bracing
and in August my dear friends come visit
and we share breakfast
then body surf in blue green waves
and in September i spend every evening watching the sun drop past the horizon


  
and in October i come back to this home and the turning of the leaves.

ah, well.
Finally, i can take a deep breath.
Because, while i've been composing this
a stiff breeze has kicked up
and clouds are thickening
and is that thunder i hear in the distance?!

Today, with heat smothering my face
singeing my nerves
i did remember some important things:

• i used to live where it was truly hot and many friends and family still do
• i once dreamed of living here

and now, here i am.

i can look out any of my windows
at the 1001 shades of green
and the blue sky and cotton white clouds
at the iris & peonies


allium & grasses and a the buds on a deutzia

and the first roses

i will close my eyes and savor the sweet evening breeze on my sweaty face
and thank my guardian stars that
i could flee that desert before i turned to dust
and live and breathe, here
in this big house with big windows full of trees and sky
and in this garden.

 

July 18th

September 11th

it's impossible not to smile
every time i drive by

there is no other garden on the very small property

September 9th

i have the great good fortune of spending one weekend a month
at Greenwood Gardens
Labor Day weekend was my weekend this month
and when i arrived and saw the oleanders in flower
i was drenched in a wave of nostalgia
remembering the row of oleanders that grew along
the irrigation ditch across the street from my parent's house.

In our corner of the southwest
the oleanders were in flower by "Decoration Day"
a.k.a. Memorial Day
and my father would harvest armfuls
of the pink and white blossoms
to place at his parents gravestones.

But they do not hold sad connotations for me
just the opposite:
they are tough, resilient plants
planted widely by "Go West, Young Man" pioneers
in their new, desert communities.
When i think of oleanders
i remember the ditch that ran beneath their boughs.
Being dry most of the time
the ditch became my secret hideaway
a place to escape the burning sun
and dream of greener, cooler lands.

i returned to Greenwood yesterday
to help with one of the "Open Days"
i was stationed in the cool and breezy
upper level of the stone teahouse
gratefully!
Yesterday was, naturally, extremely hot and humid
Every visitor who came inside the little room
exclaimed at the marked difference in temperature.
Every now and then i stepped outside, just to see
what a difference a foot-thick wall of stone and mortar makes.

Sitting here this afternoon
a day later
completely comfy in my cooled room
i took one of the other images of oleander
and messed about a bit
thinking of silk scarves

August 19th

This photograph is something i grabbed quickly a couple of weeks ago.
It was the oddest sensation:
It was late afternoon
the gibbous moon shone weakly in the remains of a sultry-overcast sky
i was indoors
one moment there was familiar soft summer light filling the windows
the next moment
snap your fingers
it was sucked away
just
like
that!
Both of us hurried to the south facing windows
asking each other "What...?" as we met in the hallway.
The sky was being swallowed by a massive black cloud sliding in from the west.
i grabbed my camera
ran outside
all the while trying to remember
how fresh are the batteries in the flashlights?
and feeling relieved that the pantry was in good shape.
A curious, sickening excitement grabbed my stomach
a terrible beauty
something fierce was on its way.

The cloud moved quickly
i had time for only a couple of shots of the glowing moon
before it was gone
and it was dark hours before night normally arrives
and the rain came.
Amazingly, i learned from the television that the worst was south of us
and any guilty thrill is washed away as i hear the announcers warn
more flooding for those folks is most likely coming their way.