Heat Wave Hits the Yard...

Yesterday was a record for heat in my small East Texas town. The mercury in the thermometer hit 110F and things are looking pretty wilted in the yard. 

I'm not worried about the grass. I've needed to change lawn mower blades for a couple of years now and if it does not grow I just save on that expense as there is not so much to cut and if I do cut it either way, dull blades or drought it looks like a bad haircut. 

I am a bit worried about my big oak tree. It shades my driveway, my house and the areas my grandkids do most of their playing. I would estimate it being 100-150 years old  and that's just an educated guess. As I figure I can afford water a bit easier than I can afford a tree service and this is judging from the price I paid to have a smaller oak that died from a fungus cut down so I have been putting the hose on slow drip at various places under it's big canopy several days a week.  

There is also a tall pine nearby and with the pine seeds getting ripe it's full of cat squirrels shucking their little hears out and carpeting the ground underneath with debris from the cone stripping the do to get at the seeds. Squirrels are pretty smart and it did not take long for them to notice the damp cool spot left by the slow water drip. It's been a common sight to see them in the evening, it's usually the day after I've run the water, laying on their bellies with legs fanned out to soak in the wet dirt. Sometimes I slip out and turn the water on them and they might take a drink but while it's running they will move on and birds move in for a drink until the next day when the squirrels return for any cool that's left.    

There's usually some animal scratch signs in the dirt where I lay the hose and hopefully the black carpenter ants which have plagued the kitchen sink and the counter top fruit bowel in search of a drink use this instead of eating and drinking on my dime and soaking up the air conditioning as well. Relocation of the fruit to the fridge has knocked the ants back and helped me cool off too.   

I'm a lazy landscaper and I let nandinas grow up at will. I recall them in my mom's and Granny's yard so they are something that's been all around but if I google nandina I get mostly "5 reasons why you should not grow." Seems it's one of those good for nothing plants that is probably an invasive species form somewhere and will take over. Global warming is creating some interesting problems but there might be a few cures mixed in. personally I think we will be better off with nandinas.     

Even the yaupon looks a bit droopy. Yaupon is a native plant and the only North American source of caffeine. The Indigenous people of the New World called it "Big Medicine" and the settlers thought it responsible for the good health of the native Americans. The settlers saw the locals using it as part of the Black Drink Ceremony to purify mind, body and soul along with chanting, fasting and purging. 

Even though some of the kids have expressed caution about my organic living I have made tea from the yaupon and drank it. I guess you can call what I do chanting. Still working on mind body and soul.       

Another lazy landscaper project is this ground cover. Probably another bad plant I can't seem to find it under any description of the best ground covers. It has done well, spreads around on it's own and fire flys come out from nesting in the leaves it traps making my deck view very colorful. The big freeze and now the drought is taking a toll. 

Here's something I usually have to trim regularly around the place the privet of the Ligustrum family. I've never seen it like this and I might not have to do much trimming come spring. Another invasive it's poison to humans but birds eat the seeds and readily spread it around. It's all around out here most strategically located here so that I can't be seen by members of the now defunct church (the one that tried to convert me to the Fox News Gospel) when I'm wearing the sarong.   

I have seen it written and it can probably found contradicted somewhere that this is the last cool summer. I myself think things are changing. Two ways to stop the change. One way is to pay the people that are extracting fossil fuels or building third world economies into global powers to stop what they are doing. It will take some money. The second way is to follow the logic of thought if unborn people have rights then those unborn have the right to a world that is not burning. Otherwise the children of the future will be pretty wilted.