Still here, still hot, still no rain......

August 12, 2025

Garden produce is roaring in, requiring attention. This heat makes it more cumbersome to process produce, seeing as it has to be done outside in the 'verandah kitchen' to keep the heat out of the house. Seems I'm constantly going in and out with needed paraphernalia, but it's getting done...so say the growing ranks of jars in the storage room. 

We were up and out by 4:30 this morning, to get some stuff done before the sun and the heat. We are getting a little tired of this endless string of hot, humid, full sun days. A little variety would be nice, Mother Nature.

I was doing my weekly soaking of the gardens this morning, watering by the light of Venus and the waning full moon, feeling around under the herbage for the bases of the plants in the dark, to place the hose. As I was uncoiling the hose from the water barrel down to the raised beds, a little moving shadow came trotting over to about 6 feet away.... one of the resident fox's kits, so curious about what was going on. Later, as the daylight grew stronger, a deer was happily snacking on the lower branches of one of our old apple trees, reaching up and pulling off mouthfuls, oblivious to me manning the hose over by the garden beds. 

I've emptied the big water tote by the Field Garden, and Hubby hooked up the pump and hoses and refilled it yesterday.

Last year we hardly had to use it at all. The hose and water intake to the pump has been laying up on the muddy bank of the pond since the initial filling this spring, becoming exposed as the water level receded. Hubby lashed the intake onto the end of a long board and put it out as far as he could, to reach deeper water.

Onions have been pulled, 

and hung in bunches to cure up in the end of the barn.

I pulled the four rutabagas out of the end of the brassica patch.,

They cleaned up real good!
 

First leek pulled and some random veg picked one morning.

A growing watermelon.

Beans, beans and more beans, 9+ pounds in the freezer, plus what we ate fresh, and the second crop is loaded with blooms and bees.

Peppers. 

Tomatoes, coming in in dribs and drabs, but soon we'll be inundated.

All are thriving and loving this heat.

Happily, we are seeing a few more of these now, 

and some of these here and there, if you look hard.

And now we are off to a Mennonite farm for some corn and peaches, as I really need more to do!