After the Rains....

And so, in a clap of thunder and a heavy splash of rain, summer arrives in Tidewater. The drought is broken. The afternoon sky now wears that hazy dove gray that we've come to think of as Confederate Blue.... the water vapor in the air blurring all the colors and the edges of clouds. Humid. The word is... humid. Welcome to summer. After a happy month of congratulating ourselves on our energy conservation, the air conditioning is on. Almost every room has a ceiling fan stirring the air. We come in from outside cranky and moist. The AC feels delicious.

Retirement can be summed up by afternoon naps. Naps, glorious naps. Naps in the cool inside. Naps under the fans on the porch. Naps in the breezes stirred by the thunderstorms. Naps. The delicious feeling of laying back and letting the world gently slip away.....

The dieback amid the farm trees is indeed Fireblight. The infection is rampant across Hampton Roads (coastal Virginia) and all areas that were hit by the April freeze. Apparently, the damage to blossoms and early shoots and fruits provided injured tissue that the bacteria could infect - even on cultivars previously considered "resistant". There is really no solution. I am pruning out affected wood, diligently sterilizing pruners between cuts and disposing of the cuttings. Everything depends on how far down into the main wood of the stems the cankers go. (I started to write 'cancers' - how appropriate!)

With the last two days' rains, the first real outbursts of toad and frog calls began and a handful of hardy fireflies made an appearance along the ditch edges. The ragged calls of the amphibians and the sputter-blink of the fireflies really create an interesting dance. Even so, there are only perhaps a dozen fireflies visible at any moment -- a pitiful count down from the hundreds and hundreds that lit the fields when I was a child. Is it the mosquito spraying? We debate every year whether to allow the city to spray our property or whether to avoid the chemicals. The lots on either side of us are sprayed, so the drift probably negates any environmental stand we are making, but I feel compelled to try. Rob loathes the mosquitoes and, after a month or so of bug buildup, is more willing to tolerate possible long term damage (to the small residents and to us) than to put up with the bites and scratching. We vacillate. If we don't spray, in time the dragonflies will come... a moment I wait for with joy each summer. I think I will sneak out this evening and take the bright green "okay-to-spray" card off our mailbox.