Monday, September 17, 2007, 02:21
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. . .
Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
The answer to that is -- not at all. Not after the temperature dropped down into the 20s on Friday night. It did, indeed, freeze Tuesday evening. But the low temperature was only 30 degrees, so the squash that were covered and the other garden plants didn't suffer too badly.
But Friday night -- well, Friday was different because the temperature dropped to 24 degrees. Even though the squash and tomatoes were covered, it didn't help much. They still got hit pretty hard. Saturday morning there was glittering frost everywhere.
We didn't try to cover the rest of the garden, and of course, everything is gone now. What was left of the pumpkins. The few watermelon that managed to hang on during the drought. The one climbing bean that struggled to climb even a little way up the basket.
My morning glories are gone, too. They still had buds and still were planning to bloom more. But they didn't get a chance.
Actually, a hard freeze down in the 20s is something that everyone who suffers from seasonal allergies looks forward to. A hard freeze in the 20s is supposed to kill off everything that is bothering you.
Right.
The pigweed and the ragweed growing in Isabelle's pasture doesn't look like it even noticed that the weather was a little chilly, never mind that the temperature dropped to 24 degrees. The garden plants wither immediately when they are frozen. The pigweed and ragweed are just as green and lush now as they were before the frost.
Personally, I don't think that's one bit fair.
The allergists say that you're not "out of the woods" so to speak until snow covers up everything that might be flying around. Like that's ever really going to happen.
Some of the pigweed is about four feet tall. And the past few winters we've only managed to get about four inches of snow. . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
Wednesday, September 12, 2007, 04:06
Tucked In For the Night
Before sunset Tuesday evening, we covered the squash. I also covered my sweet red bell peppers growing in the tub by the lilacs.
Covering the squash was an adventure. It was still so windy at that point, it was like hanging onto a sail as we tried to get the tarp down over the squash plants. We used two tarps. And I also added an old quilt. The pepper plant was easier. Randy set up the very old stepladder that we keep for covering plants. Then I draped an old pink sheet over it and tied the corners of the sheet together.
I planted a purple bell pepper this year, too, but that turned out to be a bust. It only got one purple pepper on it earlier in the summer. After that, it got a few peppers, but they seemed to suffer particularly from the heat. The peppers were tiny, turned kind of reddish and then proceeded to give in to dry rot. The purple pepper plant is on its own.
At 10:30 p.m., the temperature was 40 degrees. The sky was crystal clear with many bright stars and the big dipper positioned to the northwest. Since the sky was so clear, it certainly seems that there will be frost. The wind has died down, too.
We took the dogs for a walk up the dirt road at 7 p.m. The air was clean it was like looking at everything through a magnifying glass.
The weather forecaster on television said at 10 p.m. that we "normally" do not get frost until the beginning of October. Well, maybe now we get frost at the beginning of October, but when I was a kid, it was not uncommon to have frost at the end of August or the beginning of September.
Guinevere -- It's a little cooler in the house now, so I have put a heating pad in the kitty carrier where my old sick kitty Guinevere likes to sleep. She's got a blue crocheted Afghan over the heating pad. She is hanging in there with the antibiotics and is still eating.
Sunday morning Guinevere started sneezing and was sneezing blood. She had a bloody nose and a bloody mouth for most of the morning, although by noon, the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Her nose doesn't seem as stuffy now after that particular episode. She actually made her way to the water dish today and yesterday to get a couple of drinks. She has not drank water from the dish for several months. I have been making a slurry with water and kitty food that she has been licking up from a dish, and I suppose she was getting sufficient water from that.
Tuesday evening she came into my office to say "hello." She was actually able to meow and talk a little bit. And she was purring. And she bumped her head against our hands and wanted Randy and I to pet her.
I do not know if Guinevere will recover from whatever is going on with her sinuses or if she is nearing the end. But I do know that we are counting every day with her as a precious gift.
LeAnn R. Ralph