Drought

Day after day it is hot and dry.  Everything that should be green is turning brown.  In all of my life, I have never seen it so dry and hot for so long.  Yesterday we had a brief shower - just enough to dampen the porch, but the earth and vegetation is so dry that when I walked through the grass immediately after the 2 minute shower, everything was dry.  It was like no moisture had fallen at all.  I dug up some of my perennials to put them in pots where I can get some water to them to try to save a start of a few of them.  I was shocked at the lack of moisture in the earth, and even after digging down about a foot, the soil was bone dry and cracked.  No wonder the trees are going brown.  Some will die from lack of rain.

The wasps come to the bird bath and drink and drink.  The birds come too and sit with their wings out and their feathers fluffed as they pant through open beaks.  It is pitiful to see them suffering.  I turn on the sprinkler in the evenings to water the garden, and the birds come to sit in the cooling water and preen themselves.  So far the well is holding out, but we are more careful with water now. 

The garden is still producing a few tomatoes, but everything has stopped flowering.  I keep watering hoping that when the 100 plus degree heat finally breaks and the rain returns we might get more vegetables. There are cumulus clouds building in the sky now, but so far no rain in sight.  Pray for rain.

Sweet Talcum

Ladies bathed before noon, after their three o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting of sweat and sweet talcum.   from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee  

Days and days of 100+ degree weather is wilting the peppers and tomatoes in the garden and has made the yard nothing but a patch of dry, crunching fiber.  It wilts me too.  The heat is invasive even when I stay inside where the air conditioner moderates the temperature.  Somehow, the heat glazes the windows and pokes fingers of blasted air around the doors defying the cool inside.

I try to work in the garden early in the morning when it is relatively cool.  By nine or ten o'clock the heat begins to bake everything.  I head for the shower drenched is sweat and ready to feel the cool water.  When your head is baked by the sun and you've worked outside until the sweat runs down your back and arms, there is nothing like standing under the cool stream of water in the shower.  But the best part of a summer shower is the talcum.  I might be one of the last people in the world to use talcum;  that soft powder on freshly dried skin is a silken coating that defies the heat.  Pampered by its slippery smoothness on my parched skin, I think of the ladies of old.  Talcum and a cool bath was all the relief they had in the heat of summer.  My grandmother used to use big fluffy pad to apply the loose powder to her skin.  I remember watching her standing in her slip on a hot day in a cloud of sweet talcum as she moved the puff over arms and neck.  My talcum comes in a shaker bottle, but I think back to those wise women who knew how to fight the sticky summer heat and follow their lead  with a dousing of sweet talcum on a hot summer day.

Too Hot

Everything is wilted.  The pink dogwood is badly burned from the heat and the bald cypress tree is going dormant already. If I don't water twice  a day, the flowers and vegetables hang limp by the end of the day.  This heat is relentless.  When a temperature of 95 degrees feels like a cool spell, something is wrong. 

I've been reading a book about the Dust Bowl, and it describes years of drought and high temperatures and dust storms.  It is a bit scary when I think of the high temperatures and wild fires and drought we are currently experiencing.  I buy my meat from a farmer who raises grass fed beef. She said her pasture is almost gone and the springs on her property that have run for two generations are now dry. There are lots of folks who know more about this than I do, but I just wonder if we need to look at how we are using our land and water resources.  I continue to water my garden and my shade trees, but I will let the grass go brown. I would rather have my vegetables than a green yard.  And I will pray for rain.

Zucchini Cake

The zucchini is spilling out of the garden.  The big, luscious vines are providing beautiful dark green fruits everyday.  With zucchini if you miss picking one, in 24 hours it will be big and overgrown.  One of our favorite uses for the big fruits is to make cake.  I make the entire cake in the food processor, but you could also use a regular mixer.  Even folks who do not like zucchini will love this cake, and if you don't tell them the zucchini is in it, they will never guess that it is there!

Zucchini Cake

Grate 2 cups of zucchini and set aside

Cream together:  1/2 cup of butter, 1/2 cup of oil, 1 3/4 cups of sugar. 

Add 2 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup sour milk (add 1/2 Tbls of vinegar to the 1/2 cup of milk and stir).

Mix together 2 1/2 cups of flour, 4 Tbls cocoa. 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt.  Add dry ingredients to the egg mixture and stir until thoroughly incorporated. 

Stir in the grated zucchini.  Pour into a large jelly roll pan or a cookie sheet with a rim.  Sprinkle about 3/4 of a large bag of chocolate chips on top.  You may also want to add some pecans.

Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes.  Be careful not to over bake. (I find that 35-40 minutes works in my oven).  This is delicious plain, but is also good topped with ice cream.

Vegetables

This morning we had 3/4 inch of rain.  It is so welcomed after long, hot, dry days.  I've watered every day, but that is just not as good a rain.  Despite the dry weather, I have an abundance of produce from my own garden and the farmers markets.  My kitchen cabinet is laden with zucchini and sunburst squash, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, tomatoes and blueberries.  The sunflowers are beginning to bloom and everywhere the bees are still working their magic on the blossoms.  I love this time of year.  The garden is so plentiful, and it makes everything look hopeful and secure.  We feed ourselves and can put some up for winter too.  It is deeply satisfying to see enough food on your cabinet, grown in your own garden, to feed the family for several meals.  It goes to something primal beyond any other work I've done to be a part of the life cycle in planting, growing and harvesting.

Midsummer's Night

It is almost dark.  The last of the color is fading from the trees and grass, and soon the whole scene will go gray and then black.  But just as dusk pulls the shade on another day, my yard is alive with the tiny golden light of the fireflies.  Dozens of lights dance from the grass to the trees and into the deep woods beyond the house.  I think  for a moment about grabbing a jar and running barefoot into the dewy grass to catch the tiny lights and keep them in the jar with holes punched in the metal lid as I did when I was a child.  One summer when my son was quite young and was very ill, I caught  a whole jar of fireflies and then turned them lose in his room.  In his illness that night, the tiny jeweled lights flying across his walls and floating over his bed eased his pain and helped him to sleep.  Tonight I just enjoy the show and wonder where these delightful insects recharge during the day.  They have no idea how many children they have thrilled with their magic lantern dances in the night.  Or how many adults still drift back to childhood just watching the fireflies of midsummer dance.

Fruitfulness

Although we have not had any rain for a month, the gardens and orchard are fruitful.  The plum tree is bearing for the first time.  The plums are not the big things one can buy at the store, but the sweetness is beyond compare.  I am so thankful that the electric company spared the plum tree when they ravaged our trees and the orchard.  I am having to beat the squirrels to the fruit; they tend to take more than their share.  But I don't want to pick the plums too soon.  They are so much better when left to ripen on the tree. 

The garden is starting to produce too.  The sugar snap peas are almost done bearing, and as the heat is beginning to set it, the vines will soon dry up.  But the green beans, squash, peppers and tomatoes are thriving in the heat.  Last year it was too hot for the beans to bloom or pollinate, but this year we have lots of young beans already on the vines.  We should have our first mess with some new potatoes this week.

Last night everything on the table came from the garden or from the local farmers.  We had a delicious meatloaf (The eggs in the meatloaf were local and the milk was regional. Only the oatmeal was from an unknown origin.)  Roasted new potatoes from the garden with onions and carrots from the farmers market.  Corn that was raised locally last summer that I shucked and froze was still yummy and fresh tasting.  The salad greens were from the garden along with the snap peas and radishes.  The carrots and tomatoes were from the farmers market.  The hamburger for the meatloaf was raised locally.  I've visited the farm, and they are happy, grass raised cows whose meat has more omega 3 than fish.  It was a lovely, tasty meal. 

That is the best part of summer.  The eating is soooo good and soooo fresh! 

Grandma's Meatloaf
1 pound of ground beef
1 package of dry onion soup
1 egg

Mix these together.

Add:  old fashioned oatmeal --- just enough to help bind the meat.  I use about 1/4 to 1/3 cup.  Mix. 
Add:  Milk until the meat is moist and everything sticks together.  Do not add too much milk; add a little at a time.  I add about 1/2 to 3/4 cup depending on how much oatmeal I have used.   The leaner the meat the more milk you may need to add.  You know you have the right amount of mile when you form a ball of meat and it is just a bit sticky. (Milk tenderizes the meat, but too much will ruin the meatloaf.)

Form the meat into a ball and place in a 9X7 oven proof pan. Press the ball into a loaf shape.  Top with catsup. (Sometimes I add green pepper slices as a topping too).  Bake at 375 degrees for about an hour.  Remove from the pan and place on a platter and let it sit for 5 minutes, then slice and enjoy.