Heat Wave

We are enduring our first official "heat wave" of the summer.  Yes, it is official because the Channel 8 weather person announced it today during the noontime news.  As if we hadn't figured it out after Sunday's and Monday's  temps hovered around 90 degrees.  Today's high was 96 degrees. Fortunately, the temperature is to drop more than ten degrees for the rest of the week.  Now if we could just get a little rain.

We have a good well and have never had any problems, even during droughts but we don't like to waste water.  We purchased a portable washing machine two years ago and use it in the summer when nature doesn't fill our rain barrels.

It is rather enjoyable sitting on the back porch talking to each other while doing laundry.  We use the garden hose to fill the tub and if the hose lays in the sun for a while, the water is as hot as what comes from the faucet in the house.

We drain the water into five-gallon buckets and Terry dumps it in the rain barrels or directly onto the garden beds. The soap in the water helps deter insects from nibbling on the vegetables.

We pulled some rhubarb last evening and today I made strawberry rhubarb sauce. We can only harvest from Scarlett and Harold this year.  We split George into three plants and that means that George, Georgette and Georgine won't have large enough stalks until next year. Willis and Rudy won't be large enough to harvest from until next year because they were such small plants when we bought them.  Our new additions this year will  be ready to harvest lightly next year.  They are Joshua, Fanny and Daisy.  

More of our homesteading ingenuity.  Two years ago we had to have a diseased and damaged tree cut down.  We saved the stump to use as a base for the shepherd's crooks for Terry's bird feeders.  He loves Marigolds so we planted the tall ones around the stump and shorter ones in the outer part of the circle.  The birds kept snipping off the Marigolds before they could grow.  Last year we took down the bird feeders until the flowers could get a head start and then brought back the feeders.  It worked well and the flowers thrived.  This year we took away the feeders when we planted the flowers and the birds snipped them off anyway.  And he likes to feed these little terroristic creatures!

We had wire left from another project so Terry made little wire cages to surround each plant. The birds can't reach the Marigolds but the plants can get sun and water.  As soon as the plants are large enough to survive an attack, we will remove the cages and store them for next year.  I still think we should have been homesteaders.  Maybe we were in another life, if you believe that sort of thing.  I don't.  However we do try to use what we have and often repurpose objects.  My dad would be proud.

In spite of the hot and dry weather, the flowers in the bed along the sun room are growing nicely.  Our goal over the next few years is to plant numerous flowering bushes and perennials in order to draw honey bees and butterflies to our property.  We were so excited to see a few honey bees enjoying the Lavender, Coral Bells and the clover in our grass. Five years ago, we would have seen hundreds of honey bees around our yard and now we see less than ten at a time.