Saturday, August 25, 2018

summer's end


Summer is almost over by the calendar with Labor Day only a week away. Summer won't be over by the sun til the Autumnal Equinox on September 22. Summer probably won't be over here until mid October if we're lucky.

We had our hottest days of the season so far last week and then, as my neighbor told me, it would cool down some to the high 90s. I'm sorry laughing hysterically...what!? There is nothing 'cool' about the high 90s. It is still so hot out there that standing motionless in the shade will have you sweating in 5 minutes or less. So yeah, hot and dry. Rain showers are few and far between. So dry that the pecan trees which had stopped it's immature pecan drop by the end of July is now dropping them by the bucket fulls. You can stand anywhere in the big backyard and pick up double handfuls without taking more than a single half-step in any one direction. If this keeps up our harvest will, once again, be slim to none.


The pecan trees and the tallows and the crepe myrtles are dropping leaves fast and furious not because of any signal from nature like cool nights or shorter days, though the days are getting shorter, but because the trees can no longer support all that foliage in the heat and lack of rain. A warm breeze blows and leaves come drifting down.


The day lilies are putting up new bloom scapes. I counted 63. In August. This has never happened before.


I counted 12 new bloom scapes in this picture

A few things don't seem to mind the heat


but who can brave it long enough to enjoy the blooms?





13 comments:

  1. We are going to have to rethink what might grow in our yard in the future, Heat resistant needing very little water- It's a whole new deal ! Adaptation, humans are good at that, We will carry on. Sorry about your pecan harvest- all of those pies...shame.

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  2. Gorgeous flowers, but the pecan loss would be a disaster in my book. I love those. I can remember when I lived in Houston at 6:00 am outside and sweating. At least you aren't having to mow.

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  3. You're having a much harder summer than we have been. At least we've gotten rain and that helps so much.

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  4. That's the thing. You spend late spring getting the garden ready to enjoy the summer, but between the heat and the bugs...not so much. Oh well. Hope springs eternal.

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  5. This is stupid and naive, but I keep imagining things could flip, some year soon. When I moved here in 88, we had a brutal drought. Vegetation was shredded wheat in April. Then we had open winters, and more drought. Now we have excess rain, and floods, and if you don't live by the river, it's pleasant. Just imagining.

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  6. Well, it's Texas in August -- although I'm surprised by your lack of rain. From the radar, it's seemed as though the Wharton/El Campo area etc was getting good rain. Of course, even here it can be spotty. One day a friend on the north side of Clear Lake gets dumped on and I get nothing. The next time, it reverses. I laughed and laughed one day in Kemah last week. There were rain lilies all over the place. I guess they got rain.

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    1. We'll see it in the distance, hear the rumbling of the thunder but then it goes around us. in fact it looks like it could rain out there now...wind has picked up, thunder is rumbling, and it's gotten overcast. but we'll see if we actually get any.

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  7. May we all find relief from the heat and smoke. We finally have some rain here. Love the color of your day lilies.

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  8. We've had oppressive heat and humidity for just a few days again now and I can't stand to be outside, even though summer is disappearing before my eyes.
    I am so jealous of your pecan tree. I had one in my yard as a child, and it's been a dream of mine to have one again. I swear I won't get tired of picking up the nuts. Hope yours is able to handle the crazy weather long term. Your flowers are lovely!

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  9. I bet the bougainvillea loves it. That's one plant that seems to enjoy being baked. Is it bad that the daylilies are blooming again? Our summer has vanished -- we're having temps in the 50s and 60s under gray skies. We even had to turn the heat on for a short time last night! Hard to imagine, I know.

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  10. I think our heat wave has broken with the longer evenings now. Still petty hot during the day though, and no rain - yet.
    Our trees are dropping their leaves just like yours and today we harvested one of the grapes two months early.
    But the amaryllis has started to flower, I leave them outside in their pots before they come in during the winter, and that despite me forgetting to water it. I almost feet like living in Texas.

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