It was such a record-breaking wet spring, that this summer’s drought caught me totally by surprise. I know it hasn’t rained. But, it’s been humid. It feels damp. I’ve been watering the vegetable garden, but otherwise have left things alone. Yesterday, I noticed this:
The sun spire in the woodland border is about to expire.
This made me look around. Really look. What I saw is scary. Bushes are turning yellow, which is something we like seeing in October, not the beginning of August. Oak leaves are brown and dropping. Maple trees are showing signs of stress – some leaves are turning orange.
I worry about the forest amphibians. They’ll have to go deep to find mud. At the normally swampy edges, the jewel weed is wilted. There’s a pine path into the woods. It smells like fire. It hasn’t burned – yet – but it has that toasty, dry, warm pine needle smell. Usually, I love that aroma, but now it’s making me nervous.
Some plants are doing fine. In the meadow across the street the golden rod is in full blaze. This is a haven for butterflies. And field mice. Lily loves sniffing here.
The weather report forecasts a thunderstorm. Let’s hope it pours.
It is really scary. The tops of my sixty foot walnut trees are dead. My veggie garden, in spring a riot of green things, is now all gone. Even the cabbages wilted and died. I’ve let the chickens in there to clean up and maybe find a stray beetle. Lucky I thought to plant a few containers with sweet potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. Watering things now is mostly futile because the plant is too stressed at the top to take it up. And to top it off, my young marans cockerel, Spider, died suddenly. No wounds, no marks. I saw him running around happily eating cabbage, then he just died. I have fans on all day and night and have fenced in my entire backyard for them, mist the coop and give them watermelons for hydration as well as more waterfountians so they don’t have to travel so far. A gray fox comes by to get a drink from the bird bath. All are Patiently waiting for rain.
I wish I could figure out how to send some of ours to you. We got a tad over an inch again in the middle of the night.
The last two days have been bruttal, 102 and 101. The rain has cooled it off.
Lucy, I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your Spider! Chicken deaths are often a mystery, though, no doubt this heat and humidity stresses the birds.
Ken, that’s hotter than here, though right now I’d take a little more heat if we’d get rain.
I’m in Louisiana and for a couple of days this week we reached 100. In fact it broke records. We had rain last night and this morning but yesterday I noticed one of my great big oaks the leaves were turning brown. The same tree the leaves are starting to drop. It’s too early. Everything is so messed up.
I live in your area and waited for some heavy rain yesterday, but it rained only for a few minutes. Very disappointing, our lawn is totally brown.