Weather: Blas is the right kind of hurricane. So far as I know, it didn’t invade land, but churned up enough water to send great amounts of moisture through México, where the drought is as serious as it is here. [1] Fortunately, whatever impediment was turning moisture to the east has cleared so we got some rain Friday night.
Saturday was the first day in weeks when I could relax; I did not have to start watering before I ate breakfast. Taking care of a garden shouldn’t be an albatross. When I lived in Michigan it wasn’t. I could work when I felt like it, weeding and pruning, but I only had to run a sprinkler on weekends in the heat of the summer. As I said last week, the drought has turned daily watering into a “do it or lose it” competition in which victory is far from certain.
Last useful rain: 6/19. Week’s low: 48 degrees F. Week’s high: 101 degrees F in the shade. Winds were up to 41 mph in Santa Fé on Monday. Days in June with winds over 25 mph: 17 of 18; day’s with temperatures in the 90s: 13 of 18.
What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid and wild pink roses, desert willow, trumpet creeper, silver lace vine, red tipped yucca, Asiatic lilies, daylilies, red hot poker, Russian sage, bouncing Bess, sweet peas, lance leaf coreopsis, yellow yarrow
What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Datura, bindweed, green leaf five eyes, silver lead nightshade, alfalfa, white sweet clover, scurf peas, fern leaf and leather leaf globe mallows, velvetweed, Hopi tea, goat’s beards, strap leaf and golden hairy asters, dandelions, awn grass
What’s blooming in my yard: Miniature roses, yellow potentillas, tamarix cultivars, regale lilies fragrant, daylily cultivars, Johnson blue geranium, white spurge, coral and fox glove beard tongues, golden spur columbine, winecup mallows, ladybells, blue flax peaked, catmints, Queen Anne’s lace, pink evening primroses, black-eyed Susans, Mexican hats, Shasta daisies peaked, chocolate flowers fragrant, plains coreopsis, blanket flowers, anthemis, white yarrow
What bedding plants are blooming: Pansies, snapdragons
Animal sightings: Rabbits, quail, humming bird, western chickadees, geckoes, black swallowtail and unidentified butterflies, bumble bees, hornets, grasshoppers, squash bugs, sidewalk and harvester ants; hear crickets
On Monday, the man who was changing the water filters on my well killed a black widow spider that was nesting in the lid of the well house. It’s been several years since I’ve seen one, but I often found them near the retaining wall. I never weed close to it, because I still assume they are still there.
Tuesday, I was raking out dead leaves from a grass clump when I pulled up a hornets’ nest. Needless to say, I scurried away as quickly a possible, only to return with a can of insecticide. Then I left the area for the day. The photograph is the bottom side.
Tasks: The weather forecast said it would rain Friday night, so that morning I planted the last of the summer seeds. These were ones I kept to put in places where nothing had germinated. One never knows quite what was the problem: in some cases it was heat or lack of water, in others I suspect the seeds weren’t good or adapted for this climate. Then, of course, there are always the predatory ants, birds, and rabbits.
Weekly update: Last week, I said I watered the pansies in the early afternoon as much to cool the air around them as to hydrate their roots. I got the ideas years ago when I was reading about Arab gardens in Spain. The fountains and canals didn’t just bring water to the households but also cooled the air like evaportive coolers.
I couldn’t find the source for that fact now, and it doesn’t matter. We learn by absorbing bits of information that, for some reason, stick with us. The longer they’re in our brains, the more likely they are to be altered.
When, at a later date, one acts on some half-remembered fact, like I’ve been doing, failure is chalked up to experience, but it’s always hard to credit success to one’s efforts. I’ve learned too many factors are involved to believe I was the prime mover.
It was a surprise this week to discover this wasn’t just some bit of junk science. In Kansas, where the effects of heat are exacerbated by humidity, owners of feedlots install sprinkling systems to cool down their animals. [2]
The reason this became news is more than 2,000 head died this week. With the heat, they had “a huge spike in humidity” when “wind speeds actually dropped substantially.” The changes were so sudden the cattle couldn’t adjust to the heat stress. Anthony Tarpoff added “as long as there is a breeze — the animals are able to recover.” [3]
The owner of one feedlot said, “this is not a normal event.” While Brandon Depenbusch conceded “it does happen,” he added “it is extremely abnormal.” [4]
The reason I even read about the cattle is that I was interested in what I thought was extreme heat this year. I was annoyed when some meterologist said “it’s not uncommon to see weather patterns that support a heat wave.” [5] I thought, what planet is Robert Oravec on. While I suspected he might be from Phoenix, he actually is stationed in College Park, Maryland.
I got so annoyed, in fact, that I looked up the temperatures I recorded for June for the last five years. The averages for the first 16 day were 89.9 F, 86.6 F, and 87.9 F for 2018 to 2020. Then, last year, the average jumped more than three degrees to 93.2 F. This year the average is 93.6.
Notes on photographs:
1. Daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva) growing in the shade of the apricot tree, 16 June 2022. I put in a row, and they chose where to naturalize.
2. Hornets’ nest found in a clump of grass, 16 June 2022.
3. Table of temperature highs for June 1-June 16 for the past five years (2018–2022). Dark blue = 2018, rust = 2019, gray = 2020, gold = 2021, medium blue = 2022.
End notes:
1. This is based on seeing Air Quality maps that show smoke coming from México. I’ve never been able to get useful information about conditions there because I ask Google my questions in English. I don’t know enough Spanish to know what to ask.
2. Roxana Hegeman. “Thousands Of Cattle Killed By Brutal Heat, Humidity In Kansas.” Associated Press, published by Huffington Post website, 16 June 2022.
3. Anthony John Tarpoff, veterinarian with Kansas State University. Quoted by Hegeman.
4. Brandon Depenbusch. Quoted by Hegeman.
5. Robert Oravec, National Weather Service, Weather Prediction Center. Quoted by Ben Blanchet. “Record-Breaking Heat Wave Hits Over 75 Million Americans.” Huffington Post website, 13 June 2022.
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