yardgranny6's Blog

The Long Hot Summer
Jun 4, 2008 | 6:59 PM PST
Tags: heat , cushions , tomato

Remember that old movie? It is one of my favorites. It seemed while you were watching you could just feel the humidity and the heat, even smell those wonderful sweet scents of the south.

Well I think I am in the middle of that movie this week. Heat index was 101 degrees this afternoon. Thunderstorms would be welcome about right now.

The plants seem to love this kind of weather. If they get enough water/rain they just grow and grow. Picked maybe 2 dozen cherry tomatos this evening, ate 5 little blueberries and about 6 wee strawberries. The Celebrity tomato plant does not look too good. It did well in the beginning and has a good number of tomatos but it looks as if it has just stopped blooming. I picked three that I didn't want the birds to get before they ripen, which they can do inside just as well. Hope it perks back up.

The new perennials I bought yesterday look great. The Twilight Echinacea has nice buds, can't wait to see a red flower.

Managed to get the cushions for my outdoor glider finished today. Looks pretty good. Since the heat will continue the rest of the week, I should be able to get all the outdoor chairs finished as well.

If I can manage to get out of bed early enough a day this week, I will do some poking around in the yard. When it is 80 degrees at 8am, there is not much yard work to be gotten out of this ole gal.

More To Come Later

 

 

Saturday and the cage has four sides
Aug 4, 2007 | 3:30 PM PST
Tags: wild burmuda grass , dog days , photos , stubborn screws , Heat , Polio

Just spent the last few hours reloading all my albums. Check them out . Seems you can add pictures to the existing albums but you have to contend with the vacant photo slots. It took me a little while to realize I could just delete the blank pictures. For now the job is complete. Sure hope that never happens again.

Finally fought the battle of the drill and the stubborn screws. Hubby came out and helped me steady the frame. Now to get a couple of small hinges to use for the screen that goes on top of the cage.  Trimmed all the heads off the fennel today. The parasitic wasps like the pollen on the fennel but they will lay eggs in the caterpillers. And we don't want that to happen. Saw a few more eggs so hopefully we will be able to see a few cats mature into flying flowers.

Another bane of my existence is wild burmuda grass. I wonder if there is really anything that will kill that stuff. It can creep in, over, through and up out of foot of soil to grow where you don't want it to, like in the flower beds. Spent a couple hours this am cleaning it out of the bank where I have mulched and planted verbena and three Knockout Roses. It is looking really good now that all the grass has been taken out. Not sure what to do with it this fall/winter. I am tempted to move all the verbena and spray real hard for grass and weeds. Sounds like more hard labor, wonder if I can get overtime for the job?

The heat is coming harder every day. May be 100 degrees over the next few days. Gag! I just don't do the heat. Never could even as a kid. I remember laying on a blanket under the big maple tree in WV looking up into the 'dome'. It was a beautiful tree. WV heat is not quite like SC heat but it was miserable.

I am old enough to remember the real dog days of summer when you just did not get out and run and play hard. That was the time of Polio and the Iron Lung plus other summer ills and flu stuff.  I saw an Iron Lung a number of years ago when I worked in a hospital office. They were bringing it down the hall and everyone stared and most wondered what in the world was that? I knew and just felt a rock in my stomach from the memories of that time. At 12 years old my best friend died of Polio and her brother was in an Iron Lung for a long while. He was eventually able to come out of it with some paralysis and became a lawyer. Thank God we have innoculations against that nasty disease.

Time to rest the shoulders. More to Come Later Linda B from SC