How apropos

Just a few days ago I expressed my annoyance with media darlings who preach rhetoric. We're all quite capable of forming our own opinions when given true facts, and therein lies the rub. We need The Truth. 

Lack of rain can be a serious problem. So can flooding. We all get it. The earth is doing something it's done many times already and we're all to blame for it. I get it. My fault. 

As a young girl, the week of The Great H--n Fair was something the entire family looked forward to with great anticipation. My grandparents moseyed around the fairgrounds, chatted with their contemporaries, and went to the tractor show. My mother haunted the ag show, notepad and pen at the ready to jot down ideas. My father met his cronies, found a shady spot, and talked about work - or he shadowed me in case my friends weren't there. I was cut loose to meet girlfriends and hop on every ride again, again, and again until we were all dizzy. And we did this every day for a week because it took a week to see and do it all! 

Why did it take a week? Because it rained every damn day. When was the Fair? It overlapped the second week of August, sometimes beginning around the 10th, and sometimes ending around the 10th. 

When I saw the 10-day forecast this morning, my thoughts instantly went to Fair week. Rain with the threat of thunderstorms is absolutely normal for my area as we enter into mid-August. 

I suppose this is one of the reasons why I don't trust what I'm being force-fed about the weather. Our earth heats and cools. Ice ages? Had 'em. Tropical forests around the globe? Had 'em. Mass extinctions? Had 'em. It's pure hubris to believe we paltry humans have much say in any of this. 

The Lady at The Hideaway

Summer heat is here - go read a book

Summer heat sounds like a good book title. I've considered using it a few times but it's already been overused. Actually, it's been used to death so I will avoid it. The summer heat we're experiencing is not at all romantic. It's hot, sticky, and exhausting. Maybe it is romantic, after all. 

The stretch of days between the first of July and the middle of August used to be called the "dog days of summer." I suspect the younger crowd has forgotten all about that just as they've conveniently forgotten so many other things that don't fit their climate change narrative. 

I hear the "news" reporters crying about how it's never been this hot. Really? Temperatures in the low to mid-nineties in July is new? I don't think so, kids. It's the dog days of summer, remember. It's supposed to be hot. And, in case you don't know, locally our hottest day in July happened in 1954 where the mercury reached 105F. 

What? You don't get the mercury reference? Read a history book. 

The dog days of summer also mark the rising of the dog star, Sirius, in Hellenistic astrology. Hellenistic being what historians usually classify the era from about the first or second century BC to the sixth or seventh century AD. Again, read a book. 

This is the time of year when the garden harvest begins. We've been eating a lot of cucumbers this year. I've made a couple of batches of refrigerator pickles, and next year plan to can bread and butter pickles. "Old-fashioned" food without chemical preservatives appeals to me. 

I've room for a good-sized garden here on the manor, but there are precautions to be made. We have a lot of deer, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, and birds around. They can decimate a garden so one must prepare and then be constantly vigilant. My solution will be an electrified fence. 

I'm looking forward to growing more of my own veggies. The notion takes me back to my girlhood days and my grandfather's garden. It will keep me connected to him, and that is a good thing. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor


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