Here in the 'Pacific Northwet' we are into a month at least of dryness. Painting jobs are made easier, and the grass finally stops growing. The plants not watered have become brown stalks. There is a preponderance of the color 'gold' in our landscape.
In early summer we heard of heat waves in every other part of our country. Heat waves over a hundred degrees, where the new plants had no chance to take hold. Friends in the East coast complained to us here in the Northwest of the discomfort with the extreme unrelenting heat as though they knew how cool we were, (literally and figuratively). Our early summers are so cold, sometimes it feels impossible that a summer will ever come, and then, strangely, after the 4th of July something shifts. It gets warm and the garden vegetables begin to suddenly grow in noticeable spurts.
Even though the ground is too dry to dig anything out or in, the gophers manage to root around, creating the piles which signal their habitat. The moles go for the only places one waters, like the black-eyed susan flowers I guard and nurse every year. A mole hole rises exactly in the middle of my beautiful plant. It is hard to like 'wildlife' when I see that....
I mowed the weeds today, the little yellow flowers that are everywhere and go to seed. Even mowed weeds look OK. Last night there were coyotes howling and all the animals in the area, cows, dogs, cats etc, were making extra noise. The air is so dry, the fir trees are giving off that mountain air pine smell - exquisite. In a few weeks this will all be a memory, but for now the night is warm and full of stars. The breezes blow into open windows warm even in the dark. We pretend we live in a different climate zone, briefly.
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