Rainmaker

June has been terribly dry. On Sunday, Lissa came up and installed the new submersible pump in the cistern.

Working in the sun on the hot cement cistern in the 97 degree heat can't have been fun for her. I watched from the nearby shade. I fitted the plug with a swim cap made from a balloon. All I have to do is plug in an extension cord to get the water flowing.

That night, it was delightful to be able to water the garden without worrying about running up the water bill. I gave every veggie and flower in the fenced garden a long drink of the cold water. The pump gave even better water pressure than the outside faucet.

Back in May, when the rains were adequate, I emptied both 55-gallon barrels into the cistern  many times. That sounds like I hefted them on my shoulder and poured them carefully into the stand pipe on the cistern. The procedure was much easier and actually possible. Having installed faucets in the bottom of the barrels, I merely connected the garden hoses to them and poked the ends down the standpipe.

This story would be a triumph but for the rain which arrived the following day. Not just a little rain, either. The National Weather Service was right, we did get one-tenth to one-quarter inch. There was a bit more to it. It was one of those strange thunderstorms, full of crashing lightning, torrential rain and loud thunder that seems to park in one location, unzip the cloud contents and be loathe to move on.

That went on all day and night. I emptied the gauge at bedtime, four inches of rain. This morning, there were another five and a half inches.

Parts of the garden were in standing water. The corn had swooned.

These seed pods of the Toy Choy were being left to ripen.

The daylilies appeared glad to get watered, at last.

These sunflowers didn't appreciate nine and a half inches of water. It was a good thing they didn't have their big seed heads yet.

Ever the conserver of water, I began at once to empty the barrels into the cistern. Except for the scary cloud to ground lightning, I could have emptied them many times over.

More rain is suddenly in the week's forecast. There doesn't seem to be a shutoff.

If You Can't Stand the Heat

We are having a big heat wave. At least, I hope it is a wave and not what the rest of the summer will be like. It seemed a good time to catch up on my baking. Just today, I've turned out beets from the garden, followed by my honey wheat bread, then chicken, then Chicken Divan. The oven has been going non-stop.

Fortunately, it hasn't added a single degree of heat to the kitchen. I used the Sun Oven. The long days and outside temperatures well above ninety degrees have made this not the insane project it sounds like.

It is really too hot to do anything outside. I zip out to turn the oven occasionally to get the best fix on the sun and quickly dash back inside. In the relative cool of morning, I hung out laundry and harvested the beets, broccoli, carrots and the first zucchini for my elegant repast.

I've been inside, knitting on a wool Fair Isle vest in the air conditioning. It's a sampler project, some motifs being more pleasing to the eye than others. It's sort of a learning experience. Doing this knitting outside would guarantee a heat stroke.

The Chicken Divan was delicious. The only drawback to dinner from the Sun Oven is I can't have my usual late dinner, after sunset at nine p.m. Like hay, food must be made while the sun shines.

A Week at Grammie's

Another summer, another visit from Molly. The older granddaughters have either lost interest in coming up to Grandma's or are now engaged and working between college semesters. How did that happen?

Molly loves learning new things. This time, it was how to knit socks. Even knitting is better outside. With the help of a YouTube video, she learned how to make an afterthought heel.

We do the same things, even work the same puzzles, but it's always fun for us both. She will be back for another week in August. Grammie was even motivated to blaze a trail to the river on the ride-on mower.

 The river was above Clam Beach, but convenient seating was provided by some limbs left by the recent high water.

Beau felt we spent entirely too much time sitting and enjoying the peaceful river. He went off on adventures and occasionally checked to see if we were okay.

We feasted on veggies from the garden. There were turnips, carrots, broccoli and cabbage. We love them all. I'm sure if people could sample fresh veggies they would find them much tastier than the ones that are bred to ship.

There was Sun Oven bread to bake and eat. Molly made pancakes for our breakfast. She mastered cooking when she was nine and had a little baking business. Being extremely smart, she learns new things in a flash.

There was a failed cardigan that I unraveled, leaving lots of kinky yarn. We built a gizmo to hold the yarns, then washed them. Another YouTube video to the rescue.

After that, we hung the wet skeins out on the porch, where they dripped and dried in the sun. Wet wool is better outside, too, so the air isn't redolent of damp sheep in the house.

We have lots of fun talking and doing astronomy with our telescopes. We checked out Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and some nice fuzzballs, the globular clusters.

Staying up late isn't a problem for Grammie, who doesn't have to do anything tiresome in the mornings, like go to a job.

The Race is On

Between now and the Summer Solstice, June 20th, all growing plants are in fierce finish line mode. Who will win? I hate to say it, but it's usually the weeds.

Just this morning, I pulled this tub of rampant weeds from one of the flower beds. This haul was all from the six foot border seen in the photo. Turning my back for just a minute allowed them to rise up to worship the sun.

Weeds, unlike flowers and vegetables, don't mind being severely crowded. They long not for air circulation around them. Without actually having elbows, they shove other herbage aside and shoot ever upwards.

It's a good thing that I actually enjoy weeding. Years ago, I realized I could learn to love weeding or gardening would be a dreadful chore. Even though I came to understand that I could always plant more than I could keep weeded, I still am outnumbered on the weeds front.

Weeding isn't just a one time thing. I've already weeded the entire lily bed twice. Eternal vigilance is the price of gardening.

Mulch is great, too, but even that has to be replenished every couple of weeks because weeds are sprouting the moment the contents of the mower grass catcher is emptied onto the ground.

Fortunately, there are the early veggies. This delicious Early Round Dutch Cabbage and Little Sweetie Snow Peas finished in first place yesterday. Actually, it was while I was mulching around the cabbages that the weeds rose up in the peony border.

Then there are the Gaillardias. They are annual flowers but act like weeds. So many have come up this spring from last year's planting that I've had to yank many of them out.  It feels cruel.

 They are pretty but soon lounge over on other plants, plants that I've taken lots of trouble to grow from late winter, like these Bishop's Children Dahlias. A small fence attempts to hold them in check. These daylilies are Stella in Yella, from Roots and Rhizomes.

Perhaps I should have planted the Gaillardias in the middle of the grassy front yard. If anything could hold their own against invasive Bermuda grass, it's them. They would simply flop over and smother the grass. I'll try that next year.

The time for planting is past. Now is the time for racing the weeds to the Solstice.