LysmachiaMoon's blog: Hot and Humid

Well, I can't complain, but I will anyways. It's been a truly nice summer, hot but not abnormally so, with plenty of rain. We had a few very nice cool and dry days in late July and August, but that's over for now. Wow, is it hot. It's not so much the temperature as the humidity. I just got in from picking a bucket of beans...I was out there 20 minutes tops and I had to change into a completely fresh set of clothes when I got back into the house. I think the mercury is hovering around 83-84F, which isn't that bad, but the humidity is up near 88-90% and that's miserable.

I got about 2/3 of the North Long Border dug out/pruned and it looks much better. I still need to tackle a vastly overgrown Bridal Veil Spirea and remove some blackberry canes that have come up wildly within it. I've got a good stretch of the front of the bed re-edged (I brought the front of the bed out by only about 5-6 inches...it's plenty wide enough now.) After I'm done with the cleanup, I'm really looking forward to planting it. It's amazing how an area of the garden will evolve over time. Originally, that bed was in full blazing sun and only the toughest shrubs would survive there. Then, as the trees behind it grew up and the shrubs filled in a bit, it became an ideal "all-round" bed...dappled shade and sun, good soil, level, moisture retentive. Then, the hardiest stuff started to really take off and thrive and a few years of benign neglect turned it into the jungle I'm dealing with now. After I've pruned up the shrubs and tidied up the area, it should be a good partial shade/dappled sunshine area again and I'm looking forward to reintroducing iris, daylilies, and other perennials. I really like the shrubs pruned way up into small trees like this so I'm hoping it won't get wooly again.

My friend E and I bought daylilies in Gettysburg in June? July? and they are ready to pick up tomorrow. We're taking her car becuase my dear little old truck broke down on me yesterday. Thankfully, it happened on the way home from a quick run to the hardware store. All of a sudden, the gage cluster lit up and my temperature gauge pegged to the right. I got to a safe spot in front of a house and shut it down. Steam coming from under the hood. I called my mechanic and he came and got me and towed the truck to his shop. The radiator had cracked. It's been fixed and I'm supposed to go pick it up this afternoon. I hope it will be ok...my biggest fear was that the block might have cracked, but he says not to worry. I'm not driving it anywhere far from home for a week or so just until I'm sure everything is working the way it should. I guess after 17 years, it's inevitable things start to wear out. Apparently, radiators are now made of high-heat plastic, not metal so they crack with age instead of rust. Six on one hand, half a dozen on the other.

I need to dig out the bulb catalog and start salivating over what I want in the spring garden. I put aside all the egg money this summer just for bulbs...so I can go a bit wild.

Concerning news re: my hubby R. His cardiologist is worried because she's found that the aortic valve transplant that he received 6 years is leaking and now his mitral valve is also leaking. He's been having trouble with odd blood pressure readings (high top number, very low bottom number) and he complains of feeling tired and not himself, so we knew something was wrong. He has an appt. in Harrisburg at a specialty clinic in September. I'm afraid it might be more surgery, altho the cardiologist did say that new advances allow surgeons to do some of this valve repair thru a catheter, rather than opening the chest.

Put up 6 quarts of vegetable soup (tomatoes, corn, squash, cabbage out of the veg garden) yesterday morning, then went up to B's house and helped her put up 22 quarts of peaches. Brought 6 quarts of peaches home. My "canning shelves" are filling up nicely. I wish I was seeing more tomatoes though...looks like a fair number of green ones, but so slow to ripen and they don't seem very large. I think the Aux Garden isn't getting enough sun, but that doesn't explain the poor show from the plants in the main Veg.

That bucket of beans I just picked will probably go into jars too...I still havent picked the pole beans and I'm hoping they will yield enough to make up a canner load (6-7 quarts).

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