Ahhh, A Few Cooler Days Coming…
What a relief! Last night I was out watering the garden (because I still haven’t put together the irrigation system I’ve had in the box since March) and the cool air just started flowing in – what a delight! It reminded me of living in the Black Mountains of NC, when in the summer evenings if you were out in the yard and the cool air would start slipping down the mountain above us. You could feel it flowing by like water. Wonderful memory. This morning it’s 61 and that feels nearly chilly compared where we’ve been! And cooler is better if you are wearing your fancy bloomers all day:
The chickens made it through the heat, walking around panting since they don’t sweat, hiding out in the shady loafing shed…which begins to look like a bus stop shelter when they are all lined up, motionless, in there…and flopping on the ground in the shade. The moment the temp drops, they emerge in full chicken busy-ness. I let them out of their pasture in the evenings to roam the yard and surrounds. If I let them out earlier they would have time to wander far enough east to get in the garden which could be disastrous to the mulched beds. Chickens and a deep mulch gardening system doesn’t work, except for the chicken, who thinks you set this lovely bug and worm trap just for their pleasure as they are kicking mulch to kingdom-come.
I’d been a little worried how the Buckeyes would handle the heat since they are bred to withstand Ohio winters, not Arkansas summers. But one Buckeye breeder is down in Alabama and is successful, so they’ll probably do fine here. He did post one time that he would drip the hose for them and they’d come and stand in the water. If our water bucket gets low, the Buckeyes will just jump in and stand there. I had to put a fan blowing into their coop at night because it’s so stuffy in there. The tree that used to shade it from the afternoon sun came down in the ice storm. That spot will be high on the replanting list this fall. Supposedly the Australorps are heat tolerant, being from Australia, but they seemed as hot and oppressed and the Buckeyes did. Handsome, our Australorp rooster who arrived in an all-pullet box of chicks last autumn, looked a little miffed getting his portrait taken. You can see though, how he got his name:
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden! The whole place smells like garlic and basil after the big harvest yesterday. I’ll post about that next…AND I’ll finally post the last garden I visited on the Peace Gardens Tour.
Read MoreSunday 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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