Drought

After a few lovely mild, sunny, breezy days, the heat returned without the humidity, which is better than with.

We have had no rain for weeks, it is drought conditions. We can tell where there is grass in the yard, because it is dead. The indigenous weeds are still green, but now even their leaves are turning brown on the edges. Walking in the yard echoes with the crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps.

One neighbour is watering her back lawn, the sprinkler runs all day. Her grass and our natural yard are the only green islands in a sea of brown.

As a result of the drought conditions, the garden has decided to slow down on production, it is busy just surviving. Attila waters every day. I am washing dishes in a basin in the kitchen sink and carrying the water out to water the flowers.

From time to time it black clouds roll by, leaving nothing.

Our future garden strategies will begin to incorporate dry climate techniques.

Yesterday I canned five jars of Pickled Pepperoncini and Banana peppers. Now there is a lull in the canning activity, we are eating fresh most of what Attila can find to harvest. I have been sauteing onion, garden zucchini, and garden tomatoes in olive oil, adding a few teaspoons of sodium free garlic and herbs spice, popping it into a casserole dish, topping with a bit of grated cheddar, popping it into the microwave to melt the cheese, and serving it as a very delicious lunch or dinner.

We are still in chaos here at Mist Cottage. It doesn’t affect our garden food preservation projects, we just keep going with canning, dehydrating, and freezing.

Newly canned jars of food sit everywhere, the jars of dehydrated greens sit everywhere, the equipment for canning, dehydrating etc. sits everywhere, in and out of their storage boxes. The basement, where we like to store our canning equipment and home canned food, it is chaos. The heating system install is incomplete, because we are waiting on Ontario Hydro to send us the forms for the inspection for the new electrical panel. Apparently there is a shortage of inspectors, and so we wait.

Our basement storage system was decimated when we had to dismantle things to make access to the parts of the basement where the electrician and the furnace and stove installers needed to work, things can’t be stored properly, and I am having a hard time finding things down there. Eventually that will change, Ontario Hydro will get their job done, and we will be able to reclaim our storage space… hopefully before the snow flies. And hopefully that inspection will not lead to unexpected expenses, as the electrical system in the house is old, and some of it was DIY by people who did anything they felt like doing at the time. Attila has slowly been addressing all the questionable electrical decisions made by previous owner/s.

This morning I had the bright, but not original, idea to put up a video for Ginger. One was found on youtube. At first he did not notice it. THEN he did. At one point he attempted to climb me to get closer to the screen. The video is a success, Ginger finds it very entertaining. This will be company for him on days when I am away from the house, something to keep him company, and keep his dreams of hunting alive. You never know when a mouse will get into the house!

Since the drought set in, dishwater and wash water, that is grey water, is saved in a bucket whenever possible, to be taken out to the garden. During the day I cart several buckets of grey water out to water the perennials. This morning the water used to wash my hair watered the lilac bush, which is showing signs of stress. During the drought every bit of water counts, as we are paying for each drop through our municipal utilities bill. It is surprising that building codes do not include approved techniques for reclaiming and using grey water in urban settings. To do it manually is a lot of work, I can tell you.

While out watering Granny’s Rose with grey water, I spied Frederick the Second by the back step (or third, or fourth, unknown what generation, and he may be Fredericka, we do not know). He scurried under the concrete platform, where mice used to reside. Frederick is a Shrew, he hunts mice and small mammals, and unfortunately birds. Not many mice are seen here these days, yay Frederick. So far we see no depletion of the bird population, so they may be concentrating on rodents. A Shrew is a benefit to the garden.

Worldly

Weather

Updated on Thu, Aug 18, 12:35 PM
28 °C
FEELS LIKE 32
Partly cloudy
Wind 15 NW km/h
Humidity 43%
Visibility 26 km
Sunrise 6:14 AM
Wind gust 23 km/h
Pressure 101.1 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset 8:08 PM

Quote

“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 – 1882