Sunday Blooms…Hoping for Rain

Ok, so it may not have actually hit 100 yesterday except in heat index (which surpassed 100). That’s what I get for looking at a bank’s temperature reading when the whole sign is out in the blazing sun!  That sign (on a bank in Farmington) should lead to some amazing numbers being posted when we really do get hot in July and August.The Butterfly Weed above is doing well in the heat. I’ve yet to see any Monarch activity. (This is a native host plant of the Monarch butterfly. There are 100 kinds of milkweed and you can see pics of them here at monarchwatch.org ) I haven’t seen nearly as many butterflies of all kinds this year. I think the rainy, cold Spring may have set them back.  The ac/heater guy who tuned up our system the other day said for the first time in his career he had made heater calls in May!

More weather lore: In June we’ve only had about 2 inches of rain per the NOAA website. They must have fallen somewhere around us, because I don’t think we’ve had that much righ here. So in June we’ve had half the normal rainfall for the month. In May we had around 8 inches, versus a normal of nearly 5 inches.  Which all sounds (and feels) kind of crazy. At the same time, the historical charts say this area of the Ozarks can range anywhere between 21 and 70 inches of rain per year, with the normal being in the mid-40s. Fascinating!  And I wondered why all the old farmer types are so interested in weather lore…it’s habit forming to start really observing these patterns. Now, when the patterns are as whacky as they have been this year, it can become a true gardening challenge.

Below, the Daylilies are still holding up, if fading a bit. No, those apparent raindrops fell from a hose, not the sky… Maybe we’ll get lucky and actually get that slim chance of rain today!

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