Midsummer

And now comes that pause all gardeners know. The early crops long ago succumbed to the heat and the cukes sit pickling in jars.  We ate the last of the first planting of the sweet corn last night and the third planting of green beans is just above ground.  The tomatoes, which are wonderful this year, and the relentless zukes still bless us, but everything else waits.  Every day I thump the "not quite" watermelons, but they are holding out for August.

In the flower garden rudbeckias are wilting in the heat while crepe mytrle and zinnias seem to eat it and thrive.  I have a few blooms on an intrepid old rose by the porch and the tropicals on the porch are happy as long as I daily give them gallons of water. 

This morning on the shaded front porch there is a coolish breeze.  Hummers visit the feeder.  The flower border and trees move with finches, shy buntings, titmice and wrens.  A head-down nuthatch hangs comically from the overhang, determined, it seems to do things the hard way.  It is supposed to be in the upper nineties today and the humidity has been saturating.  Water vapor hangs in the air hiding some mountains I can usually see and muting the others.  The rooster crows down below in the barnyard, not because it is early, but just because he feels like it. Another at a neighbor's answers. Katydids clack, clack, clack.  Such a hot sound.

One of today's tasks is to wash and groom Pico, our mountain of a dog.  He will hate this and it will take two of us and we will need a third which we don't have.  Most likely  the goats have gotten out of their pen on the hillside where I am trying to get them to stay and eat brush.  They don't leave the pasture, but I really need them to eat the hill where we can't mow.  But then goats almost never do what you need them to do. Picasso, the cat, got a respiratory infection and had to be taken to the vet.  He is recovering.

The breeze on the porch has now died.  The day is bracing for the heat. I feel it.

Soon we will need to think hard about a fall garden.  I have already started some seed.  We will need to order more.  Soon the sumac will start to turn and the school busses will start to roll.  But soon is not yet.  Now is pause.  Most everything about gardening and farming is flux, so I stop and observe and enjoy these brief  static moments.