And you thought triple H was hazy, hot, and humid.
It actually is those things right now; I'm cloistered in the house to avoid yet another heatwave. What a shame, it's been glorious sleeping weather the last five or six nights!
The watering is still precarious. I can't remember the last good rain we had. At this point, we need three or four days of gentle, all day soakers to replenish the groundwater...maybe even more than that. After that insanely wet spring, you'd think we would have water to spare, but not so. I used the water in the 75 gallon stock tank that I collected from roof runoff earlier this year in one watering of the hillside and cottage gardens. The soaking tub in the back yard was emptied into watering cans to water the tomatoes. My onions are dying off quicker than I would expect, and some never even got past gumball size. I dumped a bag of spuds to see how they were doing, and they were still like baby potatoes. I had 6 baby Japanese maple trees that were coming along well this spring, but one has shriveled and died, and two don't look very happy. Despite being a variety able to tolerate sun, they can't handle the baking conditions of my holding beds without consistent watering, so I'll need to pot them up and move them into a shadier area for the time being. I have assorted perennials and shrubs that are in pots right now that need to be planted, but without a way to water them daily as they adjust, they'll stay where they are. The beds that I had weeded last week are full of self seeded perennials that should be dug up and transplanted, but they're in the same boat. As if that wasn't bad enough, most of the hoses and sprayer heads I have on hand have given up the ghost. I went from heavy, awkward rubber hoses to the lightweight expandable cloth ones years ago, and they just don't last. I can usually get two or three years out of them before they spring a leak. The sprayer heads are just cheap plastic junk; I need to invest in some good ones that will last more than a season. I gritted my teeth and laid out the money for a new lightweight, kink-free rubber hose for the back yard. Hopefully that one will last a few years. This morning I was watering the veg in the hillside garden and yet another cloth hose split, so I'll need to order yet another. With all these water woes, I'm hoping we'll get cooler, wetter weather soon enough and I can be done with it.
The squash plants are growing by leaps and bounds, though. They love this hot weather and beating sun, and I think the fresh manure I covered the bank in retained a lot of moisture. I had planned to spend the last two cool days before the heatwave either moving fence to give the mules new grazing ground, or continuing the mulching project on the squash bank. After the mules had grazed for their allotted hour and a half, they went back to the barn to stand in front of their fans and piles of hay for the day and I reviewed the fence situation. My plan is to create another dry lot where the downed pine sat for the last year; I've been keeping it mowed but haven't done the fencing yet, and I will need to get material in to smother the grass. I thought, why don't I just make a short run from the current alley across to that area, and the boys can eat that down for now. Maybe I can get enough money together to finish fencing the dry lot area and by the time they've eaten the short run, I can let them into the dry lot area and they can eat that down next. My plan was to do one side of the short run with T-posts and no climb fence, and move the pipe panels to create the other side. I started to take the pipe panels apart and immediately had a swarm of hornets buzzing around my head. The little buggers found a hole where the panel weld had rotted out and built a nest inside the fence - and this isn't the first time that's happened! You can see in the middle of this photo under the top bar a hornet on the fence, and he goes up into the pipe through the hole.
UGH. I didn't want to spray up into the fence because I don't want to use poison in my grazing area, so I walked away to stew on the issue. The next day as Fargo was coming through the gate, he hit the bottom pipe with his hoof. I heard it but didn't think much of it, but as I was swinging the gate closed I caught movement and looked up, and in the corner of the frame where it had been bent and was a little rusted and starting to separate, there were about five angry hornets looking down on me. Are you serious?!?!?! I can't even deal with this. Again, poison isn't an option around the boys, so around twenty minutes to five this morning I was out there on a ladder trying to save my mules and myself from getting swarmed and stung. I very quickly wrapped the area in aluminum foil twice around, crimped it, then quickly taped it up with all weather Gorilla Tape.
I went around the area about five times with the tape, but for all I know those hornets are in there chewing their way through it. I hate having to do thing like that, but it's the only gate and I can't risk the boys getting stung, especially if they can't really get away - the barn has no way to close them in thanks to Fargo's claustrophobia, so they'd be trapped with a swarm of angry hornets inside and out.
I decided fencing will wait until after a few good, hard, killing frosts, which should end the hornet siege naturally. I may try to fence the front pasture and create a chute from the dry lot to it. I need to think on this, because part of the fence would need to be moveable during hay season, so trucks and trailers can jockey into place. Electric fence would be the sensible solution, but I don't trust the mules not to bust right through it. That's all I'd need...those two goons running amok up and down the neighborhood.
So with the fencing situation stalled, I turned back to the bank project. Another two yards of bark mulch, as many cardboard boxes as could be collected, and I was off.
That plant in the foreground is a bull thistle, and the bane of my existence. I spend a day every spring carefully picking through the pasture and surrounding edges looking for them as they just begin growing, and painstakingly pulling them up by the roots. I put them in my big garden bags and take them to the local dump, where they end up on the mulch pile. With their razor sharp thorns, they are incredibly painful if you get tangled in them or brush up against them. As much as I love the beautiful flowers and I know the goldfinch love the seeds, I cant afford to have them near the mules (or me!). Obviously, I miss a few here and there. The things you do to keep your babies safe...
