ALL OVER IT
Remember, way last spring when the blush was still on the rose, so to speak.
Remember how I couldn’t wait for the snow to melt? How my big front window housed a double decker plant table so all the babies I started had a clear shot at the strengthening sunlight? How I went through my garden seeds multiple times, making sure I had enough of everything? How I monitored the night time temperatures constantly, hardly able to wait until I could trust the safety of plants in my little greenhouse?
I was all over that like white on rice. I couldn’t wait to get my hands into earth, watch things grow, plan where things would go. So exciting!
And then, do you remember how I couldn’t wait till my farmer got out there and tilled my garden? And how satisfying it was to get the potatoes planted? And then the rest of the garden? And how this year, for the first time, I didn’t try to do all my deck planters the same day? How much easier that went? And how, while it was sad that not one single foxglove made it through the winter, it was fortunate that they were already dead because they would have been trampled to death anyway when we revamped the deck. That would have made me even sadder.
Do you recall how happy I was when the rows started pushing through. Straight lines of lettuce, swiss chard, peas and beans ... and those 12 hours of radishes before the flea beetles found them. Do you remember the very next day when the weeds all showed up too? I can’t say that I was all over that, but I was on top of it ... for one day. I think it was June 13th. That was a very good day.
Do you remember how lush and green everything was back then? The grass was soft to walk on and it smelled so good when I mowed it. And there were tiny purple violets everywhere. And there were hummingbirds and orioles at the feeders. And there was no stagnant water to breed mosquitoes? Ah! Those were the days. I was all over that too.
It was a little worrisome though - the dry conditions - but my farmer came through with a watering system from the dugout that he’s been talking about for a couple years and had started last fall. With no threat to our well I was able to water to my heart’s content. I tell you, I have been all over that! While other gardens were stunted in their tracks my flowers bloomed, my vegetables thrived.
Then the extreme heat set in. It was time to work on the deck and the heat was just ugly out there. The grass went crunchy, water or not the vegetable leaves began to curl and flowers dropped their blossoms, plants desperate to propagate the next generation cut their life span short and went to seed immediately. The only things left green in my lawn by the end of July were dandelions and they smell awful when you mow them.
We’ve been lucky enough to get a couple rains but you won’t remember me talking about them – it feels like bragging when so many others have received nothing wet from the skies all summer long. Crops are stunted or dead, watering holes are all but empty, pastures nibbled to the ground, and feed depleted. The sale off of beef herds is as inevitable as it is heart-breaking.
This next week I’ve been invited to go camping with some family members for a kind of mini reunion. When we came up with this plan it sounded like a great idea – girl time, lazy meals, away-from-the-maddening-crowd stuff. I was all over that kind of break.
Because I’m officially on to the other kind of all over it as far as my yard and garden is concerned. I’m over weeding – you should see the mess I’ve got going on out there. I need the tractor and tiller to swipe through again. I’m over everything but cucumbers, tomatoes and corn. The planters have either baked to death or bloomed themselves out. Yep, I’m pretty much completely over the summer of 2021.
And, talk to me after a week camping at the lake ... the temperatures are supposed to soar to new heights for the next three days. I’m betting I will soon be over holidays too. Maybe a person should start Christmas shopping ... in air conditioned malls.
I could so be all over that.
