My dry rain gauge.
Tale #1 – Heat and Drought
We have a high of 106 today in Bolingbrook. 106! This. Never. Happens. My plants don’t seem to mind the heat, but they’re all a bit peaked because we’ve had so little rain. We don’t water our lawn (seems like a waste to me – almost none of our neighbors do, either), but I water my vegetables, my patio containers, and some of my flowers.
But it’s weird to be out there and have the soil cracked and the lawn crinkly and beige. We had big storms last weekend and the rain helped, but as my in-laws (who work in the agricultural industry) say, we need a week of storms to make a dent in the drought in the Midwest this summer.
Tale #2 – Rabbits
When we moved into this house, we installed yards and yards of chicken wire against the wood fence and buried it a foot underground to keep rabbits OUT. We enclosed my two raised beds with chicken wire. I’ve mentioned adventures with rabbits on the blog before.
But somehow, this year, we have a rabbit living under our shed (there were two, but Odo took care of one of them for us). And since our third raised bed didn’t get the chicken wire treatment, the rabbit has been partaking – ignoring the beets and brussel sprouts growing but inhaling the green beans. I plant seeds, which grow a few inches, then the rabbit lops the tops off. With this heat, I’m not sure we’re going to be adding chicken wire any time soon, so I guess we’re not having green beans this year.
Green bean seedling nubs
But as you may have heard people say sometimes when money gets stolen: “Well, maybe he needed it more than I did.”
Tale #3 – Good news
Some things are growing!
First red tomato!
Brussel sprouts and kale
- Swiss chard and carrots
Enough parsley to make Thanksgiving get on its knees and beg for mercy.
There are flowers, too, but I think flower photos can get kind of boring. I will spare you. For now.
Tale #4 – My bell
This is my little garden bell. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work the way I imagined. It’s heavy, so the wind has to blow pretty darn hard before it moves. When it does, we usually have no idea because we can’t hear it from inside the house.
My friend Shuli’s parents live on a magical homestead in Minnesota, with many outbuildings, seats and benches to sit and think, gardens, guinea hens, border collies, and unfinished projects. It’s a wonderful place to visit. They’ve also hung little bells in a tree out in a little ravine of woods on their land, and it’s sort of magical to come upon them as you’re walking and shake the branch to ring them – which is supposed to greet the spirits or angels of the land. (I think… not sure.) They’re Tibetan, perhaps.
Anyway, I sort of had that in mind when I hung this lonely bell from my shed. But I don’t really ever feel tempted to give it a shake. It’s not quite as magical in my suburban yard as in the magical homestead woods. I guess magical things don’t always translate to a new place.
