Barking Frenzy

My coon hound, Beau, is adding greatly to my health by ensuring that I get plenty of exercise.

He usually waits for me to take him on a long walk of an evening. He comes to the garden fence to give me that look that means finish up and let's go to the river.

Last night, a frost was on the way, which was a bummer after the extra-hot summer.  I was in the garden digging up these sweet potatoes. With the drought slowing their growth, it was amazing I got any sweet patooties at all.

Hearing Beau barking off in the direction of the river, I realized that he'd gone off without me and had something cornered.  Fetching the choke chain and leash, I headed toward the incessant yapping.  There is still enough poison ivy around that I can't just crash through the underbrush at will.  It has, however, turned a beautiful red, like warning flags.

He wasn't up at the old fishing shack, where a feral cat was once trapped, nor the old barn, ditto for yet another feral cat.  Beau lives with three cats, but regards any others as de trop and chases them.  There was a white cat on the back deck the other night, calmly eating from the cat food bowl.  Beau went berserk but was not allowed outside.

So, I thought maybe he had tracked it down.  Now I was above the sound but the bank was steep and full of  red flags.  That caused me to have to backtrack down to the path to Fishing Beach.  Coming from downriver was the unabated barking.

Beau was almost to the big bridge, circling the huge tree that had wound up there in the spring flood. He looked up when I shouted, "Leave it!" but was unable to tear himself away. He's a coon hound; that's what they do.

The shoreline is too steep for walking, so I had to go up through the sapling trees, then scramble down to the beach, then back up and over the driftwood to reach him.

As soon as  I slipped the chain around his neck, Beau switched off his frantic barking .  Whatever he was after had gone inside the tree; I never did see it.  The choke chain is not a thing I yank on to control him.  Just putting it on him calms him down and he doesn't tug on it.

It might have been possible for me to climb the steep bank above the tree, but trying to lead him seemed like a bad idea.  I envisioned us tumbling downhill together like a big six-legged snowball.

Petting  him and talking calmly, I led him down over some driftwood. Down at the water, I let him have a drink.  When he has something cornered, I fear he will never stop his frenzied barking and will pass out or worse.

Coming back was the real adventure, because we had to make our way through  stands of young maple trees growing close together on the steep bank.  It was tricky because we didn't always choose the same ones to go between, plus the branches were low and the footing unsure. I am always careful to hold the leash lightly so that it can't hurt my fingers.  Beau is not fond of my accordion playing, howling if I don't shut the bedroom door, but  he wouldn't deliberately seize the moment because he is a dog and can't think that far ahead.

Slipping on the dry silt, I landed on my side close to a five-inch sapling spike left by the beavers.  It's always fun until someone gets impaled on a spike.

We walked peacefully back up to the house.  My only discomfort was caused by wearing two sweatshirts, which had been a good choice before I got snared into a rescue operation. Despite the cool evening,  I was dripping sweat.

There was another time with yet another feral cat up in a tree in the field.  Beau apparently was too wild to notice me putting the chain on, because he suddenly ran.  For a few seconds, I had the exhilarating  experience of flying through the air.  As I landed on the mercifully soft long grass, I wondered how far I'd let him drag me before I let go.  He noticed the extra weight at that point, and that episode was over.

Sometimes, I see parallels in the outer things that are happening in my life.  An internet offer earlier in the day from one of my yarn sources offered FREE SHIPPING.  Loading up my online cart with enough yarn to qualify for the freebie, I found it hard to drag myself away from all the goodies.  Like Beau, I was transfixed and found it hard to Leave It!  Perhaps I can train him to gently tug me away from the computer when he sees me with a glazed expression triggered by wild offers.

A Thousand Pardons

Of course, I talk to my plants.  Mostly, I apologize. That's why I work on my knees.

When I dug up these daffodil bulbs last evening, I found the former owners had left a treasure trove of goodies.  "Look at all you beauties," I gushed.  "I had no idea there were so many of you here."

They snorted, "Well, we sent up plenty of leaves and NO flowers these last FOUR years!  Any fool could have seen--"

I mumbled something about too dry or too wet fall weather.  I said I was sorry. "I thought you'd be puny bulbs," I admitted.

SIZEIST!

Several hydrangea bushes were languishing leggily down by one of the outbuildings.  It was too shady for them down there, so I brought them to a choice location on the west side of the house.  There, they would get morning and afternoon shade.  They, at least, had the good grace to not scold their rescuer.

"You'll be so much happier here," I reassured them.  "Also, everyone can see your beautiful blooms in springtime here in your new home."

As I was watering them in with jugs of rainwater, the nearby hibiscus piped up.  WHAT ABOUT US?  WE'VE BEEN OUT HERE IN THE HOT SUN ALL SUMMER.

I understand this has been a shameful year for the hibiscus, but they never have been appreciative of all I've done for them.  I raised these Southern Belles from seed.  When I transplanted them from their too-shady original location I said I was sorry for choosing that spot.  Watering these wetlands shrubs all summer, I felt bad that these once proud beauties were so miserable.  Usually four feet tall and filled with jumbo flowers, they were reduced to these scrawny two foot tall specimens.  Not a word of thanks for their new location in full sun next to the downspout extension, nor the fortuitous water meter leak that gushed over them for several days in early spring.

They have started to recover from the drought.  They are experiencing great re-leaf.  They got this lovely grass mulch just as soon as some grew long enough to mow.  And yes, I watered them some more.

The Drought Dries Up

After I got the new tier in place, I rushed to sneak in a fall garden.  There is a brief moment when the soil is moist enough to till but not too wet.  To call it a window, in addition to using an overworked metaphor, would be a wild exaggeration.  No, it's more like the clicking of a camera shutter.  Too bad if you blinked and missed it.

                                                        The Fabled Fall Garden

The gamble with a fall garden is you plant things that do well in cool fall weather and can even stand a little frost.  Here in Missouri, we get a definite break from the heat in October, if we're lucky.

Although it will be too late to harvest beans planted now, I've found they make a good, cheap, ground cover for winter. Last year, I planted an ordinary package of dried beans.  They did a fine job holding the soil.  They had the good grace to not keep growing in the spring, unlike some oats I could mention.

With gathering dark clouds spurring me on, I tilled up three plots.  I had the seeds in ground before you could say Heatstroke.  Despite wearing my usual wet-frozen bandanna, the sweat dropped off my face like rain.  I believe sweat droplets falling on seeds are their greatest incentive to grow.  The seeds actually feel sorry for me and do their best to sprout.  After all, sweat is honest; tears may be faked.

The seeds were tucked in in the morning and in the early afternoon, it rained.  Did I mention it was a Blue Moon?

It was a lovely, gentle rain that continued overnight.  Raindrops on the windows were like a half-forgotten pleasant memory.  Two inches showed up in the rain gauge, a respectable total.

Three days later, we had yet another heat advisory.  Since the seedlings were too tiny to bolt, they had no choice but to grow out of the hot ground.

Since the end of this bed was still under construction, I blocked the soil with materials at hand. The wide row of turnips are up a week later, and some of the beans and lettuces.   In the foreground is the poor cantaloupe that tried so hard to grow all summer.

This plot was the site for some cabbages that were bitter about the drought.  However, there were some nice new potatoes and onions.  Two enthusiastic chard plants provided greens from last fall's planting.  They overwintered and bore me dinners all summer.  I made a chard quiche that was fabulous.  The big thing on the right is a Romanesco broccoli that I watered all summer. It's rather beautiful but shows no sign of producing the interesting head shown on the Burpee seed packet.  Behind that are some sweet potatoes that may or may not bear tubers.  The ground was too hard to dig them up earlier.  Now that we've had some rains, they have put on new leaves and may yet amount to something.  Here, I planted the beans to hold the fort and a few French Breakfast radishes.  Never actually to be eaten before noon, they do make a delicious radish sammy.

In this top tier, I did get a fairly good crop of Long Season beets.  Some scrawny carrots wound up in the compost. After tilling in more cow manure, I planted two rows of spinach, some kohl rabi, more carrots and the beans.  Still growing are some parsnips whose prognosis is not good.  We'll see, come spring.

The grasses, Gardener's Enemy Number One, revived with the rains.  I hate to admit it, but I was glad to see them greening up.

Vale of Tiers

Sometimes, a person has to accept less than ideal land.  Since I especially wanted a river of my own, one that would stay out of my house, I had to compromise with a hilly place.  Okay, it's steep.  The front yard is level but shallow.  The gravel road is so close I'd surely choke on road dust if I tried to have a vegetable garden there.

There was a fairly level spot that I planted with tomatoes, but this was not the right year for carrying water up there.  See A Remote Possibility.  Next summer promises to have lots of Sun activity, so I'm back to terracing the garden close to the water faucet.

Down at one of the intermittent stream beds, I found these odd cement cylinders.  Four a day was my limit for carrying them individually up the steep hill to Rosie, the garden tractor. I trust I burned plenty of calories.

Apparently, the cement was poured into plastic forms, which I found I could cut off.  Not a clue as to what they were originally used for, but I had an idea for another short tier at the end of the garden. It didn't seem like much of a slope there, but the precious dirt was slip-sliding away.

Yesterday, the soil was once again, after months of waiting, workable.  Yay!  Tillie seemed to suffer from lethargy, though.  The air filter was clean.  I thought if it was water in the gas, the little tiller would pass it, but it was dogging out.  Guiltily, I admitted that the gas/oil mixture was not the freshest.  Once I swapped it for a new batch, Tillie roared to life and tilled in some of those fabulous cow pies.

Always dictated to by the weather, I had to get the tier in place before rains forecast for tomorrow arrive.  Too much heat and sun made me wary of the enterprise, since I am a shade tree gardener.

The answer was this shade gizmo I rigged up.  The frame was from a Compost Tumbler that had rusted out. The gears that turned the tumbler are now the wheels for this portable shade unit.  A piece of steel siding is the top.

Although I started out doing precision work, leveling the cylinders in all directions, I soon lowered my standards.  Tight together and the same level as the preceding one seemed more than adequate.

There are more of these cement plugs to carry up and put in place, when the heat tapers off a bit. For now, it's a powerful  thirteen-cylinder barricade.  These foot-tall guys look like the tiny offspring of the enormous cement grain bins awaiting barges above the Missouri River in Kansas City.  Here, they look like they are in the garden nursery until they reach transplanting size.

Tonight, when it gets shady, I'll level the soil with Tillie and plant a cover crop for the fall and winter.  The cow pies under the tub can be worked in on the adjacent level, too.

I'm really proud of this dirt.  It started out with topsoil thin on the ground. I added manure, compost, bits of charcoal from the wood stove, egg shells, limestone granules, leaves, topsoil from down at the river and kitchen scraps to achieve this incredible loam.  It's beautiful, which explains why I don't want any of it washing away in the rain. It's mine now and I intend to keep it.

This spring, before the drought kicked in, this little 4x8 foot plot produced some delicious veggies. I got a nice harvest of snow peas, carrots, radishes and turnips.  Later in the summer, it had a bumper crop of deep cracks, but I've removed all traces of  the drought disaster, at least in this one little spot.  Now if it will only rain.

Cow Pies

When we finally got a few days with temperatures under ninety degrees, my spirits revived.  We gardeners have to be outside doing something besides measuring the depth of the cracks in the garden.  I did slide the steel tape measure down a few and got a reading of two feet deep, surely a record.  It looked like some of the cracks might go on to become crevasses.

The soil  was hard as a rock, so no digging, weeding or cultivating was possible.  For every season there is a purpose, so I decided the time was ripe for assembling soil enrichment materials.  However, the drought removed any growing vegetation.

                       The grass everywhere was in this state, gray and dismal.

All summer, I'd been looking at the vacated cow pasture, with an eye to slipping through the barbed wire fence and swiping some of the cow pies.  So when the weather turned from unbearably hot, over a hundred degrees, to just hot, I set out with my big rope tub and turning fork.  Finding a really big dried cow plop, I realized that if you are the sort of person who considers such a thing a treasure, you must accept it about yourself.  I have.

If questioned, I was prepared to argue that I was taking it in trade for all the huge tracks the cows left when they got out and wandered through my place.  I could show them exhibits.  Anyway, no one seemed to notice.  Over several days, I got rather a lot and spread it over the garden in anticipation of fall rains.

Who knows, maybe this dried cow stuff has lost all its nutrients, but it was lightweight and should provide some organic material to be tilled in.

In my gardening life, I've shoveled a lot of manure.  When I had the dairy goats, I could load the big manure spreader with goat droppings and straw bedding in a few hours.  Later, when I lost the farm, I gardened in the small town where I lived before finding this place.  I was not above begging horse manure, even llama toidies.

A few days ago, this area was blessed with two inches of rain, the most we'd had at once in a long while. I was actually able to pull a few weeds in the iris bed.  Soon, I'll be able to till in the cow pies.  Life is good.

Heard Through the Grapevine

Checking for ripe grapes, I tried to look nonchalant while actually hanging around, listening.

Summer sounds are so different from those in springtime, when all nature is the first blush of youth. Gone is all the twittering between the birds, perhaps for fear of litigation.

A field sparrow trilled its beautiful song, but gave out with only the first few bars and ignored the repeat sign. In springtime, it was the sound track of my life.  Gone now, like good radio stations.

Where are the robins? With the heat and drought, worms have vanished from their menu.  I believe the robins all met for iced tea at Denney's and decided to take advantage of the off-season migration specials. While I was hiding out in the AC, they slipped out of town.  Even now, they are having coffee in cool Newfoundland.  They do that disappearing act every year at this time.  We don't notice because they leave in small groups and fly under the radar.

Some mockingbirds are seen, but they, too, have stopped serenading for mates.  They used up their huge repertoire and are waiting for other songs to imitate. They do not fear copyright infringement litigation.

                                                        A Shriek in the Night
When I was out stargazing, the stillness was broken by an unidentified bird, not  a whippoorwill.  It sounded as if it had completely lost its mind.  Perhaps it was a form of heatstroke or heat-induced hysteria.  A person so rarely has the opportunity to hear a bird have a nervous breakdown.  Okay, it could have been a screech owl.

                                                                Spanish Frogs

Not being a nature photographer, this was the best shot I could get of a frog hopping over the milweed-covered pond.  The frogs only jump when I walk along the shore and it is hard for me to take the picture while walking, because then the camera would be moving.  I guess they are Spanish frogs because they sound like they are using castanets.

One evening at dusk, there was such a doleful sound coming from down by the pond that I almost rushed down to help someone in distress.  Then I heard it again.  Now I understand where the expression "croaked" came into being. It was pretty scary.

                                                   Shrill Voices
Then there are the insects that make me think my ears are ringing.  Or maybe they leave my ears ringing. These are the locusts and other emitters of high-pitched sounds.  The noise is just within the range of human hearing, unfortunately.  It seems I can hear them even after they've stopped piercing the air with all that shrill droning.

                                                Back to the Grapevine
I got to thinking about what they say about eavesdroppers, that they never hear anything good about themselves. I imagined a locust leading the chorus, saying, "You cicadas and crickets need to come in more on that last bit.  Louder!  I can still hear her playing Santa Lucia on her infernal accordion."

The Sun is Acting Up

With all the incessant heat this summer, the one bright spot is the Sun.

My interest in astronomy has led me to articles about our most important star.  Frankly, I had no idea that it could carry on so.  Looks like a source of global warming to me, but I'm no scientist.

NASA has lots of websites, so I don't have to invest in a solar telescope or a solar filter for the 'scope I have.  That's great, because as a shade tree person,  I can't see how I could manage it.

So, there are all these cool satellites orbiting the Sun, sending back fabulous pictures and videos.

There are even online tutorials for us Sun dummies to learn a thing or two.  Everything that I wanted to know but was afraid to ask about Coronal Mass Ejections has been carefully explained, with pictures.

The news is that the Sun is not only in an extremely active year for sunspots, zero days without one this year, but is "ramping up" for lots more next year.

Stuck inside in the endless heat advisory days, I've become addicted to spaceweather.com, checking every few hours to see the drama unfolding.  At night, excited by the solar activity, I go outside  and look  for auroras excited by the solar activity.

I believe that all those cameras orbiting  the Sun are contributing to the sunspots, solar flares and CME's. It's just like when young movie stars get surrounded with more press coverage than is good for them.  They can't handle all that public scrutiny and flip out.

Next, we'll have media polls tabulating which sunspot was the biggest disappointment, or the best fireworks display.  I don't see it going so far as a trend toward young mothers naming their babies AR-1520, but you never know.

Across the River and Around the Bend

All the heat has turned me into a lizard-like creature.  I come out in the early morning and then hide from the sun until evening.

The grandkids came for a few days and we all waded across the river.  I regret to say that I was not leading the pack, being a wimp where deep water is concerned.  I can swim, but only well enough to not drown immediately.

Carolyn, age fifteen, led the way and coaxed me and her mom, Izzy, to cross the Grand River.  Jason and Molly are good little swimmers. We all wore shoes for the rocky beach, which turned to lovely sand halfway across.

It was never deeper than my waist, and I am a short Grammie. Whale rock doesn't look so much like a whale when the water is this low.

The water was warm, with refreshing cool currents toward the far side, where it was shady.  Izzy and I walked upriver on the sandy shore, going around the bend. The kids appeared to be swimming in the deep middle of the river.

However, when we told them to stand on the bottom, to allay our fears that it was quite dangerous, we had to laugh.

It was getting dusk by then, so we took our sandy selves up to the house and had BBQ'd hamburgers.

When it got dark, I got out the telescope and showed them Saturn and M7, a beautiful open cluster of stars, above the Cat's Eyes in Scorpio.  They loved the Butterfly Cluster, M6. Now they can understand when I mention that I was stargazing until two in the morning.  Once some of the sky goodies are found, we stargazers want more and more.  They could see individual stars in the Milky Way, which was a big surprise for them.  Saturn's rings are a huge draw for getting people hooked on astronomy. People can only resist it until they look in a telescope, and then they are goners.

At the very least, I now have others who know what I'm talking about when I say M7.

Midsummer Blues

The same force that causes me to get into a gardening frenzy in December is at work now.  The Summer Solstice is the signal for me to rein in my wild planting excesses.

This year, however, I have been struggling for some time with dry conditions, devoting lots of energy to hauling water or dragging the hoses around.  The statistics just in reveal that this is the second driest April through June on record.  Also, we rarely get our first hundred degree days until late July, and we've had so many now I've lost count.  How it could be so hot and dry and still be humid is one of Nature's nasty secrets.

It's like when you feel kind of crummy and the doctor says you have pneumonia, you feel immediately much worse.

After that, I understood that the reason the Remote Garden has not grown properly is drought. I gave the plants water, fish fertilizer, water, cow manure tea and water.  I can't carry enough water up there to make a difference.  These tomatoes simply do not have enough leaf cover to protect the tomatoes from sun scald.  When corn tassels at two feet tall, it's the same thing; it's not going to make it. The word is unthrifty.

Many trees, like these honey locusts, have been forced to lay off half of their leaves.  My first ripe cucumber looked delicious but when I tasted it, it was so bitter that hours later my lips and tongue were still smarting.
My daughter Lissa raised some like that one year and she said even the chickens wouldn't eat them, and they have no lips.

The only sensible thing for me to do is to stop watering the lost causes and concentrate on things that have a chance of survival.  This is the first time I've ever seen a peony bush wilt.  They did perk up with some water. Veggies and perennials first is my plan.  Some of the annual flowers have already shriveled up in the hot wind.

Even the Grand River doesn't look so grand, and is dropping daily.  I was sitting here at Fishing Beach one evening, listening to some fish tumbling rocks nearby when a young deer appeared on the sandbar.  I held very still and it couldn't seem to figure me out for some time.  It finally trotted along the sand upriver.  My side of the river has no sandbars, just rock. It's on the outer bend of the river, so I must hang out with the rip-rap. The river can now be waded across, so I may see how far I can walk on the sandy side.  At least I can go around the bend, if I haven't already.

Meanwhile, I got an order of wool sock yarns and am knitting away while listening to a biography of Birdseye, inventor of frozen foods.  Also for entertainment, I'm watching Shackleton and reading Black Ice, set in Antarctica.  It all helps.

Small Victories on the Cottage Garden Front

It's good to have some success plans for the garden.  Sometimes, plants don't come out the victor in these skirmishes with invasive grasses, hot winds and little rain.

My idea for moving some of the husky types to the front Cottage Garden is coming along.  First of all, I dug up the Shasta Daisy that was hogging the space next to the Diana, Princess of Wales Rose.  The book said to gently pull the roots apart.  The book always says that, because people who write gardening advice are sadists.  All of the root masses I've come across, with the exception of irises,  make a Gordian Knot seem easy.  So I did what I usually do, and cut the plant with a shovel.  I planted the four pieces at various spots in the thick mat of grass and they have thrived and bloomed.  Amazing.  Next year, they will triumph over even more grass.

To the right and back is the recently sheared sage plant of some enormous proportions. Beyond that is the gone-to-seed coreopsis.

Out back, the rose thanked me by putting on quite a display and even now is into a second flush of bloom.

Back to the Cottage Garden.  The Coreopsis plants were their rambunctious selves, sprawling over everything around them.  Talk about elbows on the table.  I let them go to seed.  They are such rowdies that even tossing the pulled-up stalks starts a new patch, as was evidenced by some near the porch where I threw some last year.  I really love these guys.  They are so cheery.

The sage plant was an idea the former owners had.  I hack it back after it blooms but I think there's no getting rid of it, since it's too close to the house for explosives.  I don't really use that much sage.  We did try it as a steeped tea and it wasn't too bad, with lemon and sugar.  The bees and even tiny butterflies were all over it, having a feast.

After starting some datura seeds much too early and babying them along, I found dozens of volunteers where I had them last year.  I transplanted a few and they have made better growth than my pitiful specimens.  They have had a bit of a struggle but I've carried bowls of water to them.  The bowls have dirt in the water from rinsing veggies.  I don't want the dirt down the drains and so carry it to the daturas.

Due to the semi-drought, I haven't had to mow these last few weeks, which gave the chicory the opportunity to bloom.  They aren't really a candidate for the cottage garden because they  bloom beautifully in the mornings and look like stickery weeds in the afternoons.  Here, they are growing in the driveway, where they pester people getting out of their cars.  They are seen all along the roads here in summer, coming back even stronger after being mowed.  Unlike me, they like the dry rocky conditions.

Next, I will move some of the daylilies, seen above.  They are another plant that can hold its own against grasses.  Last fall, I dug up one beautiful yellow one and got 14 plants along the garden fence, using my hatchet technique with the shovel.  The fencing I added to the barbed wire to keep cows from munching on my side; they love daylilies.

Now, I'm turning my attention to the vegetable garden, where I'm discovering that a watched tomato doesn't turn red.