The Sky Ain't Gonna Rain Any More, Methinks

Our hickory trees turn a great yellow.

 Two months later, and still no measurable rain. We have been taunted by exactly two brief showers. The rain gauge crept up to 1/8 of an inch after one of them.

 I feel as if this drought is sucking me dry of my personality, or at least the better parts of it.

So what’s a garden girl to do in what’s now been labeled an extreme drought by the weather guy?  I reseeded my dead lawns. Brilliant. For 10 days, I was a slave to the water hose, moistening the seeds every two hours in unseasonably warm 85-degree heat. When I’m not watering the lawns, I’m trying to sustain the plants. The arugula and lettuce have fared better than some of the shrubs.

Gardening is hard on the soul. And the increasing masses of hungry deer only aggravate the situation. Every morning I wake soon after sunrise to count how many there are. I watched them chew on this and that for a while, but when they start feasting on my new lawns, I rap on the window and send them on down the road. Then I climb back into bed to wait for a more decent hour to rise.

Mason put up this sign a few months ago. He likes to think it keeps out the lookie-loos.

A cool front came through two days ago and finally we dropped back down into the 70s. In a normal year, I’d be celebrating the extra warm fall; but in a normal year, we would have had 6 inches of rain last month.

Adding to our gloom, the other day we noticed the screen atop one of our rain barrels had fallen into the barrel, and something furry -- and clearly dead -- was floating in it. A squirrel. Mason was quickly called in for burial rites. A few days later, after a trip to town to get some new screen, Mason emptied out the barrel to clean it up a bit before the new screen installation. It quickly drained of water, but not of squirrels. Three more drownings. Felt bad for the poor fellas.

The only thing that’s coming easy on the mountain these days is drowning our sorrows in Mason’s homebrew beer. A new one called Fresh Squished is all the rage with all two resident imbibers. We’ll be sure to have plenty on ice for Tuesday.

Nick, on an evening walk.