Whether it has been hot, cool, or rainy (and Ohio has been very rainy), what you can say about the weather so far this summer is that it is more than normal.
When you get a little more than normal of anything… you sort of get concerned about the impact. Like, is it raining cats and dogs all week? I start thinking about whether the disease issues that such weather brings will crop up. Whether I can get out into the garden to weed, as muddy conditions around here can turn epic quickly.
But after a certain threshold is hit, I come to sort of a resignation level: Que sera, que sera.
We have definitely hit that threshold in this neck of the woods. I already know that the weeds have outstripped my ability to really control them on this large place. That disease will hit, I just don’t know how hard. Things like that…
Not that this crusty old gardener is giving up the battle to have a productive and pretty garden. No, I am just biding my time, and re-adjusting my sights.
There are upsides to “more than normal”:
- We have rainforest green and lush look all through the entire landscape.
- No, I don’t have to water.
- My cucumbers love it!
- I was visiting with my son and grandson, anyway…
- The late planted stuff has springtime conditions to get established long into June (and now July)
You see, life can always deliver something of a silver lining if we look for it. We will just need to refocus away from those ominous looking thunderclouds!
What I’m Focusing On
For one thing, when there are open sunny moments, I enjoy sitting outdoors and soaking it in.
While doing that, one attunes to the many different birdsongs, and the flow of life around one. The other day I was very startled as one cat snapped up his chipmunk prey and then ran off into the yard to play with it. It was a brave and feisty little rodent and I am not sure how he fared,eventually.
I received an up close visit from a curious hummingbird.
The sound of wind and approaching rain over the corn fields, rainbows, and a fantasy evening of lightning bugs which dance in a swirl of sparks at every chance they get.
It is a great, wide, and wonderful world…
Eventually
The weeds will need determined uprooting, the damages of heat and humidity, and too much wet will have to be addressed. The sun will break through and the garden will dry out.
I’ll have to catch up and the weather will become the dog days of summer -fueled by all this rain. Hot and humid followed by hot an dry until we get some sort of respite in early October.
The seasons turn, and in the midsummer heat I will again hole up inside to write the suspended newsletters, to add more blogposts, and continue whatever progress I can make on my well laid plans.
Life continues and I am grateful to be part of it.
What do you do when you get “more than normal”?
The endless rain seems to have eased for a bit. I may even have to water! The water has been both blessing and curse. We are so often dry here in the summer, so this year it is so very, very green. But the weeds and the plants have grown so much as to turn my garden into a jungle! Unfortunately, the Japanese beetles are thriving after the rains. Cursed things!
yes- I find much the same condition. I hated seeing those Japanese beetles show up! Late, but en masse.