SUMMERWEEN

 

The smoky atmosphere lends an eeriness to the world. All of a sudden the days are noticeably shorter. The angle of the sun casts long shadows. Earth tones take the place of summer greens. It's "Summerween."

After several days of “excessive heat,” today is much cooler (70) with rain. We need the rain. As a matter of fact, the water level in the old cistern which we use to irrigate the gardens is now below the pump, so Mike connected the hoses to the spigot on the house. I’m also carrying gray water from the sink to the vegetation. It seems like a lot of work, but you know, September is upon us. We’ll be putting the gardens to bed before we know it. I wonder if my crop of green tomatoes will ripen or if I’ll make green tomato mincemeat this year.

Anyway, it’s a little cool but we feel refreshed. In fact, Mike said he enjoyed his bike ride so much this morning that he didn’t want to quit. And it’s finally cool enough to bake, and I made banana bread today.

It appeared that the smoke had cleared out some this morning, but it’s back with a vengeance this afternoon. Not only can we not see the canyon or the buttes but the fields are obscured. We’re sitting in the middle of smoke. In fact, I’m watching visibility grow worse right now. I don’t know where the fires are.

The hummingbirds are gone. It’s time to put the feeders away.

I needed to wash a load of whites this morning, even though I had to hang them on the wooden rack on the sun porch due to the pending rain. That’s not the story, though. The story is that it took me ten minutes to open the childproof pouch of Tide pods. I remember when childproof caps first came out (yes, I can remember when medicine bottles didn’t have childproof caps), and the joke was that senior citizens who don’t have children anyway couldn’t open their medications. I thought of that this morning as I made multiple attempts to open the pouch. I even felt panic rising until I realized that I still have liquid detergent, but just then I apparently held my mouth just right and the pouch zipped open. I reclosed it with a clip.
KW