This has been a strange week…..
My husband is on day 10 of fever with Covid and I have self-quarantined. I have been nurse maid to him all week, doing all the cooking and cleaning (well, not much cleaning!). I am fortunate that I did not get Covid and I still feel fine…..besides force-feeding my husband vitamins.
“Drink your pediolite. It’s good for you.”
“Take your vitamins. They are good for you.”
“Eat your soup. It’s good for you.”
I haven’t been this overbearing since I had littles in the house. I have received a few eye rolls, vitamins left and glasses of pediolite untouched. Today I discovered that my husband, (as sick as he is,) has enough energy to pour out the Pediolite behind my back and pretend he drank it. Kinda funny.. I have told him countless times to go outside and get some Vitamin D from the sun, but the hot Texas sun is likely to burn him to a crisp. Then I’d have a sun-burnt, covid-ridden, grumpy husband. 🙂 Tonight, we went outside and sat on our porch watching a distant rainstorm.
It is amazing that one day it feels like Africa-hot, and then the very next day, Fall rains renew the earth. The rains cool the earth, wake up the Fall Lilies and just like that…..it is the end of Sumer. Fall officially begins with the bloom of the Oxblood Lily. I look forward to Fall every minute of every hot summer.
August and September are incredibly hot months,, but there is no use crying over the heat and coiling up like a snake to hibernate on the inside. There are a lot of garden chores that shouldn’t be neglected.
My main focus over the summer is plant and garden preservation. I focus on weeding, flipping compost piles, trimming dead growth, watering and mulching. Today, I took two bundles of leftover hay that I still had from the chickens,, and I mulched around my plants in full sun. I should’ve done it earlier in the summer, but I still had my chickens. They destroyed everything I did with mulching! Imagine toddlers with permanent markers coloring on a white rug.. Now that I’m chicken-less, I can get jobs done without total chicken destruction. I actually prefer hay to wood chips. I find that hay retains moisture a lot better than wood chips. The temperature under the hay feels a good twenty degrees cooler than the ground without hay. That’s a life-saver for most plants in Texas summers. I also have continued work on my rock path through the studio gardens. I like digging, so when I’m bored, I dig for river rock. There is no shortage of rock on that property, and I am constantly moving rock here and there. I think I have edged, un-edged, edged, un-edged the same gardens over six times……you’d think I’d learn.
Tonight, our little town finally got a little rain. Not enough to bring the Lilies out, but it is beginning to cool off. Summer is coming to an end, as we wait for Fall. Counting down the days until I see my beloved Oxblood Lilies…..Fall is right around the corner!
Happy Gardening, my friends!