Monday, July 18, 2011

Summertime and the Living is Easy?


Teresa here, reporting from the lower levels of hell, or perhaps I should say, the upper levels, as heat rises. I have never in all my borned days, as Festus used to say on Gunsmoke, endured such hellish conditions. The humidity has made the atmosphere even more rain foresty than it already was and the mosquitoes and bugs are making me long for the comforts of a "tiger cage" near a rice paddy in Viet Nam.  Too soon?  Maybe that will always be too soon.




I must say, though, when I walked out barefoot to my gardens this morning, to cut a fresh bouquet, hell never looked so good.








How it feels is another thing.



 Buddy's chillin'.





38 comments:

  1. Teresa come down South...We have humidity that makes demons sweat..:-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Teresa:
    Your photographs really convey the humid conditions you are experiencing, but through the mist the garden is looking wonderful. Buddy definitely has the right idea!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Teresa, come to KC...miserable hot! My yard has already gone dormant. Your flowers are simply beautiful! and, Buddy is adorable.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your flower garden is wonderful....very Gertrude Jekyll like. Nice mix of color. The holly hocks are a favorite of mine, and yet I can't seem to grow them in my garden. The heat seems to be taking its toll on my plants, yet your variety seems to be holding up quite well. You must have good soil! I live on land that was scraped clean and then back-filled with infertile clay soil lacking in in any nutrient...I've been amending like a crazed person to no avail. I don't think I would ever buy a house in a subdivision again because of this scraping practice.
    Buddy looks pretty comfortable on the chair. It's funny how our dogs take over the house. My Maggie likes to lay on my favorite chair, and I literally have to move her to another spot by picking her up...and she's a big girl....probably close to 90 pounds. I get a workout having my sweetie around. True love!
    Wishing you a bit of relief from the humidity. Seems the heat is a lot more tolerable with less humidity. Your photos are awesome btw. Hope your week is off to an easy start. xo

    ReplyDelete
  5. Now I know why they are called "the dog days of Summer." Stay cool.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have been watering the last few days. I went out at 5am to enjoy the outdoors and it was 8o by 8am. It was 98 yesterday, my poor dog ran under a tree while at the lake shooting some pics. I have had 3 people stop and see if I needed help while shooting along the roadside this week.I have gotten some nice sweet corn, it likes the heat.Here i sit stranded , a prisoner of AC. May hit the beach later.What a lovely flowerbed, you have done well.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Your words and your photos ooze with all the humidity, Teresa. Beautiful! We are experiencing the same down here near Chicago. It is a bit oppressive at times, for sure. Our daughter up near the Twin Cities says it is miserable there, much more than normal. Stay cool inside and enjoy the view.

    Oh, I love your hollyhocks. Maybe next year . . .

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your garden is GORGEOUS! I love holly hocks, too. We are having the same weather here in the midwest. I don't do well in this weather : )

    ReplyDelete
  9. Get on a nonstop Alaska Airlines flight and I'll pick you up at the Seattle airport. At 11:30 a.m. it's 60 degrees and sunny. Tomorrow it will warm up to the low 70s.

    I just redid the guest bedroom and I'd be glad to have you. Really!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Fancy a bit of good old fashioned cold rain from England? Or a few dark clouds to liven up the permanently grey skies?

    Thought not.

    Nobody is ever satisfied with the weather they have.

    Your garden is gorgeous, how dare you have an English garden on the other side of the world?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The photos are gorgeous, and the humidity is visible! I thought of you as I wrote my sort-of-whining piece about the heat today. Found myself wondering how you stay cool. (Also, I'm worried about the mosquitoes up there...we'll be not far from you next week.)

    ReplyDelete
  12. PAUL, Sweating demons? Yikes!



    JANE and LANCE, Buddy's no fool. He goes out to do his bizzness and then races back inside. Wearing a fur coat in this heat can't be pleasant.



    TM, This whole mid-western thing is heading east I think, but not for a few days. It's settling in for a spell. I'm so thankful for central air.



    KARENA, I wasn't familiar with Gertrude Jekyll. I immediately did some reading and so I thank you for that. She had quite a life with planning and planting. My soil is very good - dark and rich. Being near the river probably helps. Buddy has recently discovered the chair and the couch. We tolerate a lot when we're in love. :) I adore this little guy, who's not so little anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hello Teresa! All those beautiful flowers with all those splendid colours, and in the mist they look like in a fairy tale. Something from Wonderland if it wasn't as hot!
    Here's a drink of ice cold water!
    Grethe ´)

    ReplyDelete
  14. STEVEN, Dog days of summer, indeed. He's got the right idea. Thanks!



    OOTP Steve, Buddy and I are just hanging around the place most of the time, waiting for this to move off and cool off. Hugs to your Lily, sweet little thing. Try to stay cool. Thanks!



    LOTC, Penny, This seems to be blanketing the entire mid-west. I am outside early morning, and it's still unbearable. I think I have more hollyhocks this year than I did last, and this is just one flower bed. I have another back by my dormant-this-year veggie garden that's also full of them. They have a down home elegance about them, if that makes sense.



    LADYCAT, It's hellacious, that's certain. Try toi stay cool! Thanks for the kind words about my garden.



    LINDA, That sounds enticing. If I didn't have a couple of things keeping me here right now, I'd take you up on that! Thanks so much for the invite!



    FRIKO. You are so right. We bitch about the weather, as a nice change from politics. I have to admit that the garden was, for the most part, already in place when I bought this place. I'm just caretaking what the master gardener before me planted. He knew what he was doing. I've just added a few things. It's a little on the wild side, but I like it that way. :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thyra (Grethe), It's one hot wonderland. :) Thank you for the ice cold water. I shall place it against my brow before down the hatch it goes!

    ReplyDelete
  16. BLOG, Nancy, I read your post and could so relate. The skeeters are vicious, but that can change. And depends are where you are, or will be. I have a couple of small "ponds" in one of my rock gardens and that probably doesn't help. Standing water and all. Stay Cool!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Been there done that and have humidity/heat stories that won't stop. It's very hard to take and as you know Teresa there's something to be said about the SW when it comes to humidity. But - - - my how things can grow and the satisfaction you get from your yard makes the bad palatable.

    Hated it when I was a kid. Conditions you write about are why there were so many screened in porches. I know several families who just slept on the porch just to make it bearable.

    Bitch and moan as much as we can as after all we're damn near through the 7th month of the year - - WHAT!!

    I show 55% humidity which is where it's been at for a few days and that's high for NW Colorado and you can tell it. Better than 99% like some of you guys get.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I love those hollyhocks. I forgot to bring most of mine over to the new place when I came and I am missing them. I have one plant that made it but it seems kind of stunted. I admire the beauty that your garden holds but not the humidity or the skeeters. Our new place doesn't have any and man, after 37 years of fighting them at the old place, I am glad to be free of them. Follow Buddies lead!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Your garden is absolutely spectacular! I didn't think it got too hot in Minnesota.
    I'm new to your blog and was looking at your profile. You are the only other person, so far, I've run into who is also a Lucinda Williams fan.

    ReplyDelete
  20. The lower levels of Hell? That's pretty bad. You guys are really having a time of it this summer. The whole middle of the country is.
    With all of California's problems I think I will stay right here. You can't beat the weather.
    I love those pictures of your garden. Your poochy has the right idea.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Those flower pictures are magical! I cannot imagine how one could deal with this level of heat without some place to escape to.

    ReplyDelete
  22. The photos of your gardens are absolutely gorgeous! The flowers love those conditions, people,not so much! It is hot here now too, but the humidity is in the single digits and it is cool at night. And the skeeters... they are talking about having an archery season on them here this year.

    ReplyDelete
  23. It's been like Hades here too, a very sweaty one, but the flowers do make it all worth while, Buddy is so cute. the early am here I take a walk, only time to do it, right now it's perfect temp. when winter comes we'll be wishing for the dog days of summer.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Teresa take a skinny dip-that will cool you off and make you smile...:-)

    ReplyDelete
  25. What marvelous photographs. For some reason those flower images put me in mind of that wonderful Paul Simon line "the orange bled the blue"

    ReplyDelete
  26. ONE FLY, Yes, the SW certainly doesn't have this humidity. We had a summer bedroom on one corner of our porch. A nice place to sleep in summer. And, winter is always just around the corner, then I can complain about the cold. :)



    TERI, One of the things I loved about living in the SW was the no skeeters zone. I can well imagine how nice it is to be free of them.



    LINDA, I'm so glad you stopped over. I'm a big Lucinda fan. Great songwriter. I've visited over at your place now, and am enjoying the similarities in our stories. Thanks for reading and commenting!



    FARMLADY, The foothills of the Sierra Nevadas is probably a fine place to be. Yeah, I'm following Buddy's lead. He's no dummy.



    DJAN, My escape is my house with central air, but it's no way to be when I love being outdoors. It's a slight change today for the better.



    MONTUCKY, Archery season. that's rough, but I do declare they have a worse sting than what I recall from my youth. And there size is getting to sci-fi levels, it seems. :) Thanks for the kind words about my photos.



    LINDA S, Yeah, winter is coming, and the cold, so I hope the rest of the summer settles down for all of us.



    PAUL, I have the river very handy....



    ALAN, Thank You! I am a big Paul Simon fan. A great songwriter, one of our best.

    ReplyDelete
  27. We got 90 something and a heat index off the charts and the humidity is suffocating. I am supposed to stay indoors for the next 7 days. I think I will. I like your flower photos. Very nice flowers.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Hi Abe, Take care. Stay cool! Thanks for the nice comment on my flower photos.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hej Teresa! I forgot to say that Buddy should have some water too.....!! He's so sweet!!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Oh Grethe, you are so sweet, so kind. I will refresh his water dish right now and let him know it's from You! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I'm sorry you are suffering such heat.. while my toes are nippy here in NZ... but your garden is fabulous! May a cool breeze come for you and Buddy xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  32. I love Joan's "nippy toes" phrase. Great name for a rock band. Also, Buddy appears to have perfected the Golden Retriever angst. No other dog even comes close to this affected flatness. Heat can be sensually inviting but humidity....nah. The flowers are stunning and could audition for roles in the next scifi movie about beautiful, exotic body snatchers. That, my friend, should help you sleep well tonight. Hee Hee Hee

    ReplyDelete
  33. Joan, so good to hear from you and I'm always surprised to remember our differing seasons. It's always winter somewhere, or mighty close.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Cletis, Buddy is a golden through and through. And, as body snatchers go, the floral variety aren't bad.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Your flower photos are restful and soothing, esp. like the hollyhocks.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Kate, Thank you. I had a wonderful abundance of them this year in all colors.

    ReplyDelete
  37. These photos wear like a beautifully wet summer dress. Of course that is from a distance. I do feel the heat through your words. Hope the humidity has lifted some since that post was written. Truly hard to move with any speed on days like this. Love meeting Buddy for the first time. He has that, "hug me if you want" look. Would if I could and you too. Here's to a soft breeze and your BEAUTIFUL garden.

    ReplyDelete
  38. What I love about your comments is that they are frequently poetic and always thoughtful. Thanks so much.

    A big hug to you.

    ReplyDelete