summer in the country

The two rain showers we got last weekend aside, it is still very dry out here.  The garden has suffered from the three or four days a week we are in the city.  We water when we are here but the tomatos are brown and the remaining friuts are shriveled with cracked thick skins.  The altheas and azaleas are in a constant state of droop.  The pecan trees will start shedding their immature fruit if this keeps up.  Oddly enough though, the green beans have started to flower and put on fruit again.

future green bean

A pair of cardinals appear to be building a nest in the chinese tallow tree outside the back door.  This will be fun as it is visible from three different windows.  It seems a little late in the season for this kind of activity though.  I saw the female availing herself of the birdbath this morning, giving herself a good washing.  It is a small shallow dish so it always goes dry while we are in the city unless it rains.  The first thing I do when we get back is put water in it again.  Later in the day I saw a pair of inca doves perched on it’s rim.

It’s hot, lazy and somnambulent.  I keep thinking I should start on the drawings for the last of the proposals I need to do but I can’t get motivated, not even to just draw out the perimeters of the windows and doors.  The cicadas drone on up and down the scale.  All else is tucked away somewhere against the heat, the birds, the hawks that patrol the fields around us, even Jimmy’s dogs (that wasn’t mama dog that died btw, Jimmy says she’s under the house with a new litter).

The field corn has turned totally brown and dry.  The earliest fields planted have been harvested but not the one across the road yet as he planted late this spring.  Before they harvest it, the corn needs to be tested for nitrites (bad for cows and horses) so they know how high to set the cutter bar on the harvester.  The fields around here are being cut at about 12” - 16” as the concentrations are highest in the lower part of the stalk.  Later, they go back and cut what’s left to the ground but I don’t know what they do with that.  I’m getting a little more knowledgeable about the farming part of this country life but we still gawk when we see one of those big harvesting machines.  Some of them are the size of a small house. 

A lovely end to the day.