The chickens have come home to roost...

Mud chickens that is.  For the last three days we have been receiving water from the sky.  A very unlikely event for 2011.  We normally will have over 34 inches of rain by this time each year.  This year we have 11 inches to date and about an inch of that fell in the last three days. 

We have become grudgingly accustomed to this year.  In addition to the lack of rain there has been many days of over 100 degree temperatures so that by now, when it is only in the mid to upper nineties, it feels relatively cool.  We have altered our lives to the extent that we water our struggling vegetable garden every single day.  We do this in spite of a water ban because of a happy little loophole in that ban.

If you water with a sprinkler system, you are relegated to watering only two days a week and those days are specified by whether your house address ends in an even or odd number.  The ban also requires you to water at certain very inconvenient times, basically from sundown to sunup.  The loophole is that you can water to your hearts content any day of the week and at any time if you hold the hose.  Now that is already our basic way of watering because it is much more efficient and effective than using a sprinkler.  If we were watering our vegetable plants with a sprinkler we would have either 1. dead plants because we would not be getting enough water to the plants we want to cherish and instead be watering the entire yard, or 2. have a water bill that pushes into four figures a month.  So the ban has not actually limited our watering of the plants.

The plants have shown their appreciation of this by dying by degrees instead of all at once.  The attrition level continues to climb as these poor plants, faced with a pitiless cloud free sun and temperatures more suited to cooking decide it is just not worth it and finally expire.  Others valiantly struggle onward.  The attrition has been worse on the cucumbers.  My husband has been nurturing and coddling these guys with cleverly placed shade cloths that he must remove at sunrise so they can get some sun but recover by noon or they just fry away.  If we get even one cucumber this fall it will be due to his undying cucumber loyalty.

In the beginning of September the 100 degree plus hatred of the Mega-Summer relented for about a week and we had temperatures in the 60s at night and 80s in the day.   The effect on everyone was transformative.  Unfortunately that kind of weather is so foreign to this part of the world it quickly continued its journey to its actual home somewhere far, far from here, but it did the job.  Mega-Summer was vanquished and although our temperatures have crept back into Summer realms, the waning daylight has effectively nixed any more of those 109 degree days.

And then it rained.  It wasn't just me who upon hearing the rain became startled and confused (what is that sound???) others reported the same.  I had to actually walk out into a pelting shower in order to seek the long forgotten umbrella somewhere hidden in my car.  It was raining - oh joy!!!

The joy has been somewhat diminished by its effect on a portion of our pathway in the garden.  At the first of the year when we were breaking ground on the new garden areas we found a brilliant solution to what to do with all the tons of clay we were unearthing.  We will just put it into the pathway and sprinkle it with grass seed and presto - instant grassy path.  We pulverized the clay and bought the grass seed and waited for a rainy day.  Fast forward about six months.  That clay path has become powder and now that it has rained enough to actually wet the soil it has become a clay bog.

This would be something that could be avoided except for two reasons.  A Border Collie and a Westie.  Now the Border Collie is doing what she thinks is a grand job in mixing up the clay for us.  It looks like a herd of Border Collies has passed back and forth through the pathway so that there are clingy little ridges of it strewn up onto the fence and surrounding garden areas.

The Westie who is older and therefore more reasoning about how staying clean will allow you better access to being allowed indoors avoids this pathway most of the time.  He does not avoid it when I am outside in the garden areas adjacent to the muddy path.  In fact, his sister the Border Collie likes nothing better than to ram his little body down into the mud any time he ventures into that area.  The net effect is muddy paws.

For the Border Collie the muddy paws are what you would expect.  A little under the nails and a little in between the pads.  For some reason, the Westie has feet that collect mud better than anything on this earth.  I was coming inside after scouting the areas I was going to plant my new squash plants (either destined for a wonderful fall garden or a continued source of plant sacrifice to the gods of unreasonable drought).  My husband was watching from the kitchen window and pointed out poor little Lewey's progress behind me.  His little feet had managed to attract so much mud they were like little puppy snow shoes, fully twice as large as normal.  His halting progress also indicated that this was very uncomfortable.  So, I scooped him up and spent a good 10 minutes in the tub de-mudding his paws.  The Border Collie also had to be debrided before coming inside.

This has all the makings of a big pain in the neck which is forcing my husband and I to come up with alternative solutions, of which there is really only one.  We have to fence off the muddy area.  Luckily we have the fencing for it, but unluckily we are out of fence posts.  This means we will either have to make the enormously bothersome trip to the lumber store or devise some alternate plan.  The problem with alternate plans is that the Border Collie absolutely loves the muddy part of the yard because that is where she has shouting matches with the squirrels, something that rates very high on the Border Collie obsession scale.  This will mean she will try with all of her abundant energy and intelligence to get around any barrier we place in her way.

It should prove to be an interesting time.

105

That was the high temperature on Sunday.  105.  It set records for the hottest June 5th in recorded history for this area.  I can't tell you how happy that makes me, mostly because sarcasm is hard to get across in writing.  They also promised us a chance of rain but that was an empty promise.  No rain.

With it this early in the year it is hard not to have all sorts of anticipatory stress about the actual summer.  How many 100 plus days are we going to have?  Is it ever going to rain?  Will the weather forecasters ever stop being so unnaturally happy and perky?   It is not like they have anything new to say these days.  Hot and humid covers it.  But no, they have to justify their existence so they talk about high pressures (currently sitting right over our heads) and lie about the chance of rain (almost a 25% chance for scattered showers).  They also get some sort of thrill now that it is officially hurricane season of looking at amorphous blobs of weather in the Atlantic and speculating on all manner of outcomes.  In the end what it all boils down to is that it is hot and humid.

Having lived on the Gulf coast of Texas most of my life I could write the book on hot and humid.  As children we dealt with it by finding shade and adventure in equal amounts.  Too much shade and not enough adventure meant boredom, but too much adventure and not enough shade could mean heat exhaustion.  It was close, but we usually chose boredom by a thin margin.

I can remember one particularly hot day when my cousin Bobby and I had retreated to the upstairs loft of the barn.  We had the window open and it was so hot this day there were not even wasps to bother.  We languished in the heat trying to get our baked brains to come up with something entertaining.  This was when we discovered the melting point of crayons.  We had a box of crayons and some paper in the loft in order to plan out our adventures.  Not all of the crayons were the same, some being actual Crayola brand but others being some sort of cheaper type.  One of the cheap type had ended up in a patch of sunlight and when I picked it up it was no longer firm and I was able to bend it into a circle.

Just behind the barn and attached to it right below the north facing window was the shed roof.   You could climb out the window onto this roof easily and we often did that when our parents were not looking.  This day putting a bare foot onto that roof was asking for a blister.  It was so hot there were heat waves coming off the top of it.  We decided to melt some more of the crayons so we found an old jar lid and put four crayons into it.  I leaned out the window and Bobby held my legs so I could place the jar top onto the shed roof without having to set foot on it.  After that we waited and watched.  It must be said getting the two of us to sit still was not something that was easily accomplished but given the summer heat of that day, being still was a survival skill.  After several minutes as we watched and nothing changed we began to fidget.

"Do you think they are melted now?" Bobby asked.  "I don't know," I said, "They don't look any different."  He braced my legs and I leaned down for the jar lid, which was now very hot to touch.  As I was lifting the lid the heat became unbearable and I dropped it, scattering all but one of the crayons onto the shed roof.  The one I brought up was Aqua Blue and it was hot enough to bend.  We then set about finding another container and putting more crayons out to melt.

What we learned was that not all crayons melt easily.  The cheaper type melted more because they seemed to be made of some sort of wax.  These we could not only bend but actually mush into a ball shape.  The Crayola brand resisted melting.  Some colors would get hot enough to bend a little but others seemed almost impervious.  Eventually we became frustrated and bored and threw quite a few crayons onto the shed roof in a fit of pique.  There is no boredom like melting crayon boredom.

As an adult I have several hot summer related memories.  There was the year we went without air conditioning.  Daytime was fine because we just stayed out of the house, but nights were endless.  To sleep we pointed three different fans set on high at the bed.  It felt a little like trying to sleep in a hot windstorm.  However, the most memorable summer of heat I can recall was the year we built the greenhouse.

I forget which year it was except that we had more over 100 degree days than any previous record.  For some reason we set about building this greenhouse in August.  The plan was simple.  Dig post holes.  Place landscaping timbers into holes.  Roof with opaque fiberglass panels.  The problem was that it was over 100 degrees and there was no shade.  My husband came up with the ice water idea.  He reasoned that what happened in heat exhaustion was that the brain itself became overheated.  If we had a way to 'chill' the brain the body could work without harm.

So we set up a cooler filled with ice and water.  We placed several towels into the slushy mix.  We would work for a time and when we felt a little hot, we would get a towel out, wring it out and apply it to our necks.  It was deliciously shocking to feel the blast of frigid cold on an overheated body.  It also seemed to do the job of preventing us from becoming overheated.  We started just using the chilled towels on our necks, then we began to place the towels over our heads and under our hats to more directly chill the brain.

Eventually as we continued to work day after day in the miserable heat we came up with the ultimate solution.  It was simple and very effective.  You worked for several minutes until you felt a little hot.  You then went to the ice water cooler and filled a bowl with icy water.  You dumped the icy water over your head.  After you stopped screaming and wriggling you went back to work.  You made sure to repeat this process at least every 20 minutes.

Now there are plenty of people who have done this process purely for recreation.  They sit in a hot tub or sauna until they are hot and then run out into the snow and roll around.  I am not sure what they felt, but I can tell you the contrast of oppressive heat to numbing cold is a shock.  Your body is first all 'Help me I am so hot' to immediately 'Help me I am so cold'.  It not only stops the heat build up to your system it is also very invigorating.  Using this technique we were able to finish building the greenhouse and not suffer heat stroke. 

I am not sure what this summer is going to bring us, but if the trend is going to be an early Mega-Summer then I just might be taking an ice water dip sometime soon.

Seasons

When I was a child I was taught there were four seasons which were formally introduced as Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.  Spring was always depicted as having birds and flowers and beginning in April.  Summer had a bright sun and started in July.  Fall showed colorful leaves swirling in a breeze and began in September.  Winter showed snowflakes and started in December.  It was all very colorful, precise and very wrong.

Living on the gulf coast of Texas for most of my life has given me a different perspective of seasons.  This thing called Spring.  I guess you could say we get that, but it typically occurs sometime in late February or early March.  There will be very nice sunny days and temperatures in the 60s and 70s with the nights dipping down into the 50s.  It is grand and usually causes me no end of gardening fervor.  Life is great, I have boundless energy and many, many projects get accomplished.  There are no mosquitoes, no bugs and every day is a joy.  This lasts approximately two weeks or less.

Then comes April, which begins to behave in a very bipolar way.  Some days it is springlike and others have highs in the 90s with 90 percent humidity.  Often in April there will begin a series of torrential rains that continue into May.  These rains will make the ground a bog and cause two different reactions in the garden.  Reaction one is that certain plants will grow like mad and escape any restraints or trellis.  They cannot be brought under control because to do that I would have to wade into a quagmire to get to them.  Reaction two is that the plant drowns.  There is nothing I can do for them so I usually end up standing by their corpses and apologizing for having put them in a swamp.

With all the torrential rains come the mosquitoes and an oppressive humidity that makes me fear I will contract either a mosquito born illness or parts of my skin will begin to rot from the constant moisture.  From May into June there is a sense of dread that becomes stronger and stronger.  Even if there is a rare day where the temperatures are reasonable I cannot enjoy it.  Summer is taking over.  Every year I go through the stages of grief about it.  Denial - "It is still Spring.  It isn't that hot yet and perhaps this year it won't get too hot."  Anger - "Why in the hell do I have to live in this God forsaken part of the world where the Spring is so short and the Summers try and kill me?"  Bargaining - "Just let there be one more week of reasonable weather, just one more week and I will do every house repair and garden improvement known to mankind."  Depression - "This will be the year the summer kills me.  Why bother even getting out of bed.  Spring is over and there is nothing but relentless heat and humidity for the rest of my life."  Acceptance - well, I actually never seem to reach this stage, I just cycle back through the other stages.

Once Summer begins it takes a choke hold and lasts well into September and often into October.  Hell, it may not give up.  There can be 90 degree weather in December.  Summer daytime temperatures can remain in the high 90s to 100s but the worst is that the night time temperatures will stay in the 80s.  No, let me correct that.  The worst is that the humidity stays at 80 percent or higher.  There is no adult human that can endure this kind of torment for very long.  For example, I know that the Native American people that lived along the Gulf coast, the Karankawas, were purported to be cannibals.  That's what the heat, humidity and mosquitoes can drive you to do.  Thank God for air conditioning.  Even with the AC, indoor temperatures usually stay close to 80 in my house.  I become an indoor creature as opposed to the sun as any nocturnal animal.  Sleep becomes a challenge due to the necessity of having several fans blowing on me at all times.  The fans make it bearable but a combination of fan and AC can actually make it too cold which will cause me to pull up a sheet.  This will then make it too hot so I will kick off the sheet.  So sleep in the summer becomes much more athletic.

Then comes August.  It deserves its own separate season designation so I am crowning it Mega-Summer.  Take everything that is bad about summer, notch it up by about 20 degrees and then let it go on and on and on.  I swear that there is some time distortion in August that gives it far more than its 31 allotted days.  Forget about the garden.  Every year at the start of Spring, in some sort of amnesic delusion, I vow to continue to garden throughout the summer.  I will water every day.  I will tend the plants.  Every year I give up completely in August.  Why bother watering when the air temperature actually cooks the plants as they stand.

As far as Fall is concerned I am not sure I have ever experienced it.  Supposedly, I have read and seen on TV, there is this time where the temperatures cool off, the leaves on the trees change color and people ride hay wagons.  Not here.  Yes, occasionally we will have a few days where the oppressive Mega-Summer heat ceases and I will emerge from the dim recesses of my AC environment to blink like a cave creature dazzled by the sun.  Usually though we go from one extreme to the other with a temperature drop of over 40 degrees in a single day.  Forget about the leaves changing colors, they just fall off the tree in blackened clumps.

We do have Winter, but it doesn't usually arrive on time.  I think I look forward to winter the most so that I can wear my winter wardrobe which consists mostly of shirts with long sleeves.  These clothes are so seldom worn that they last for years and years.  Once Winter decides to get here it is not as cold as some places, but it manages to combine some of the most uncomfortable seasonal characteristics without any charm.  Snow is something we might have every decade or two but we do have cold rain, bitter winds, high humidity and mud.  When it does drop below freezing - good luck traveling on any of the roads.  There will be ice on bridges and overpasses and a tremendous number of drivers completely out of their element merrily slamming into one another.  Even if the city wanted to sand all the roadways it is not like they have the equipment necessary to deal with the hundreds of miles of city streets. 

Sometimes I fantasize about living where there are four seasons, where everything happens by the book in proper order.  Until then I will just have to keep enduring Short-Spring, Summer, Mega-Summer, Virtually Non-existent Fall and Winter.