We’ve had no rain since the latter part of June.  We’re on pump and well, so must be stingy with the water.  We irrigate the vegetables as much as we can, but can’t do the ornamentals. Some herbs in pots by the outside stairs have died.  But we’re eating all veggies from the garden and freezing a decent amount.  We’re getting zucchini [I only grow Romanesco and cousa types], patty pans, yellow, green and purple beans, Oriental eggplants and just in the last few days, three Italian eggplants.  I made baba genoush with them. The Orientals don’t work for that, but I love them. No peeling, no salting, just cook and eat.  Also we’re getting frying and bell peppers I froze one package of the bell type to stuff in the cold weather. I froze seven pounds of beans so far. But it depresses me to see so many beautiful bushes and perennials and annuals dying from lack of water and too much, way too much heat.  The air is toxic. Grass crunches underfoot.

Willow has begun to enjoy playing with Shaman.  She is no longer afraid of him but, while she doesn’t yet cuddle with him, she wrestles the kitten and they play King of the Hill.  Sometimes the now and ceasing to be in her case, not a couch potato, but a wallflower, hiding in the condo she reacted in the wall where pipes go through between the storeroom and the downstairs office. No other cat ever created themselves a private condo like that.  Jim Beam discovered the passageway and simply used to downstairs jump on sleeping guests on the daybed in the office.  May have friends to dinner == still up in the air.

The herb garden and the pollinator garden sometimes get some water, enough to keep them going.  Therefore the bees and other pollinators still come and that remains very important. I have to make and freeze more pesto this weekend. 

We processed our handneck garlic on Thursday morning.  Less than last year but better garlic.                                                                                                    

I have two mss sent me to blurb.  I started one on Wednesday.  She was a poet in my juried intensive poetry workshop years ago.  Her poems have gotten very Christian, but I’m slogging through it understanding what I can. A lot is weird and incomprehensible to me.  A lot of Jesus.  Their Jesus. 

I really mean it when I say that Shaman is a superkitty.  It was five weeks we got him yesterday.  He is fully integrated into the house.  He b bonded with Schwartzie by the third day.  He has a harder task with Willow, but now they lay together every evening and morning.  He is super affectionate – purrs when you touch him.  He is amazingly athletic and playful.  He is not a finicky eater.  He is curious about everything and interested in everything we or Schwartzie does.  He’s also very handsome and I suspect he will be a big cat when he finishes growing. 

Still no tomatoes.  Dale sent me a post Woody put on Fb last year around this time—the diningroom table totally covered with tomatoes.  Every year is different. This year, no cole crops at all as a woodchuck ate all of them except bok choi.  We’re getting better eggplant of both types now – Oriental in abundance and some Italian eggplants. I made b aba genoush yesterday.  We are also getting bigger and healthier peppers and finally a few cucumbers.  My pollinator garden is full of blossoms.  I haven’t been able give my gardens the attention they need because of the roaring heat. It knocks me out fast.