Category Archives: weather

Green tree frogs (Hyla versicolor and H. chrysocelis) live in the liner of our pool

It felt great putting on a light sweater to go milk the goats this morning.  Am I a bad person for wishing for summer’s end?  Or maybe just a bad gardener?  This summer, however, was for the record books.  And I don’t like to live my life by making records.  (Let the whining begin!)

The small person is big on little frogs

Normal years have us hitting ninety maybe three days a year.  This year topped 13.  Yes:  I shouldn’t complain, as Michigan doesn’t get hurricanes or Texas-sized droughts…we’re not even prime for earthquakes, and we live too close to Lake Michigan for tornadoes to hit us.  Somehow that doesn’t matter when there’s enough personal drama that even record rains and heat don’t register.  But sayonara, Summer.  I’ve had it with your drama, weather and otherwise.

Gotcha!

(The pool is the concession I made to my husband years ago when I told him we can’t use the a/c any longer.  It is pleasant, and it helps maintain marital peace.)

It’s usually the second week of August where most newbie gardeners give up the ghost and leave their gardens to the weeds.  I may be no newbie, but it’s been a tough year in the epic weed/bug battle and it’s left me a bit frustrated.  I have the CSA folks to grow for now too and can I say that my fifth planting of summer squash might bear fruit this year?  Yes.  The rest of you might be swimming in zucchini…and I am officially jealous.

The budding herpetologist.

So I am thankful for my determinate tomatoes, the Bellstar Paste:  you gotta love a plant that doesn’t sprawl, is the first to set fruit and is also over and done by the third week of August.  Oh, how happy I am when I pull those plants!  Others come out too and I find myself in a flurry again, adding compost, reseeding, pulling out nonperfomers:  if summer was a wash for some things, then it stands to reason that autumn will be wonderful.  Gardeners are nothing if they’re not hopeful.

And I’ve got hope, lots of hope.

Ground cloth/weed blocker makes a good shade cloth for tender lettuces

Ping/bang/scrape, buzzz….ping/bang/scrape…buzz:  it’s got to be summer, I can no longer deny it.  The June bugs hit the screen of our bedroom window as I sit reading every night in the light of the nightstand lamp.  June, already?  Yes.

I have learned to ignore or at least tune out the clanging gong of the seasonal imperatives this late spring/early summer.  How can I not?  With everything clamoring to be The First Priority, isn’t it easier to stay in bed, or maybe go to the beach?

15’x60′ addition is at least fenced and tilled:  garden beds need to be installed and filled and, well, planted

Yes, I am trying hard to take my own advice:  it’s a marathon, not a sprint.  Winter’s late stay, spring’s sodden unhappiness…these things do affect what comes out of the ground, including what should be going into it, and when.  So indeed the garden expansion is two months behind.  So be it!  Corn in September, not August; beans in August, not July.

Besides:  wouldn’t you just rather be a kid, and play?  Or at least sit down and watch one do so?  Eleven day old baby Ivy with mama Cricket, out to pasture

Nothing like a little April SNOW shower

Winter danced in and out before it settled in, and spring apparently feels the need to do the same.  That’s fine.  I find I am still behind, gardenwork-wise, so a late start to the season is to my advantage.

Not that I am wishing a late season on the rest of you, of course!

The lake, yesterday

We spent part of a snowy Sunday afternoon attending a school event.  I discovered in that funny way one has of thinking “I am the only person to think this way” that indeed, it isn’t just students who hope for snow days.  Parents do a fair amount of wishing too.

“Spoon under your pillow tonight,” said one.  “Oh no:  wear your underwear inside-out,” said another.  “Do both,” said a third.

Well, school is in session today, but we’re at home.  And I am glad.

It is pretty miserable outside right now.  I won’t get into the tit-for-tat description but let’s just say going about in the dark to do the milking and then animal chores was not its usual pleasant undertaking.  But all the animals are warm, fed, watered and happy, and have adjusted themselves to this colder world.  They move around a lot less, eat a bit more.  Just like we humans, come to think of it.

Does anyone else have a hard time adjusting to winter?  I don’t mean, necessarily, adjusting to the cold, for that will happen with a bit of time.  I mean simply that I have a hard time managing all this free time I seem suddenly to have once the snow comes to stay.  My weekends are filled instead with…laundry!  housecleaning!  ugh.

I much prefer getting dirty to getting clean, I guess.

May all your snow days be warm and toasty, with plenty of snow shoeing, sledding, hot cocoa and keeping warm.