Heat Wave

Temperatures in the 90's and I now spend my days watering. Even a brief pause and the poor plants wilt pathetically - not always from lack of H2O, but as their natural response to heat. (Now with the tomatoes, that afternoon wilting is important to harvesting tomatoes with real flavor. It seems that true tomato flavor can be "watered down" by overzealous gardeners!)

The yard grass has never really greened up. Protected from the heat in their huge, air-conditioned combines, neighboring farmers are harvesting the large, golden fields of wheat.... unleashing hordes of thrips, who will all come over to visit my yard and garden. Phooey.

The garden's toads would like to mate and each morning generaly requires fishing a pair or two out of the swimming pool. Less frequently now that it's truly hot and dry - the amphibians must be estivating, that summer hibernation to escape the drought. Several times I've found the female toads almost drowned, pushed under by the weight of the smaller male toad determinedly clinging to their back. Not clinging as a lifesaving measure, mind you. The male continues clutching the female in a mating lock, even as she flounders and sinks. Seems to me I've watched some marriages that were similar, if only in an emotional sense.

Late yesterday afternoon, I paused for a sit at the picnic table on the edge of our little clover field where Iris Kitty waited impatiently for pets. Sitting in the shade and petting a little cat (such a shady character) is a true delight. And while sitting, I began to notice more and more honeybees working the clover! Finally! Bees! More than we have seen to date and all of last year - obviously allowing the clover to grow and flower has been a wonderful favor to them. We feel that our attention has been returned - suddenly we are communal with the feral honeybees. I call them feral, since I know of no beekeepers in our neighborhood and I feel that they may be the hope of the species - safe from the hive-borne and propagated diseases and problems.

Now, when I drive down the roads, all of the flat, all-green turf lawns look like a barren wasteland to me. As they probably do to the bees. Between the pesticide sprayed farm fields and the manicured, empty lawns, where can they go? To my clover, I hope. Happy bees, happy me.

And all along the weeping willow's edge and along the break of the ditches, fireflies blink-blinked at each other. Not where I had just closely mowed the house lawn, but where there were some weeds and taller grass. Habitat? Who knows. We're beginning to look askance at mowing period .... except to keep the general growth at bay and we're talking about a natural flower meadow next spring - between the fig trees and the raised vegetable beds, where all of our many rows of thornless blackberries used to be. Perhaps we can return our overworked little farm to something natural after all!