Bulletin From Purgatory

I call it purgatory because we have fans--otherwise it would be hell.

The slight cooling we were promised for yesterday did not happen, and in the late afternoon our front porch thermometer said 94F. We had neglected to close the windows and shades until late morning, and as a result the house was about five degrees hotter than in previous days. Closing down the house keeps things cooler, but it makes me feel weird and sluggish, as if I had the flu.

Today we've been promised thunderstorms, and much cooler temperatures. So far, however, the sun is still beating down, and there are only a few clouds in the sky. I worry about the nestful of baby phoebes in the porch, who are literally panting. How do the parents keep them from dehydrating?

The hens are panting too. This heat is not good for them. The hen that survived the fox attack has disappeared. I'm sure the heat stress was too much for her, and she died and something carried her off. The dogs, of course, are champion panters. That's how they cool themselves, and may explain why Bisou doesn't seem to mind parking her hot little body right up against mine every time I sit down.

It hasn't rained in quite a while. Though most of the vegetables and flowers are doing fine, I've been watering the grass seed that is supposed to cover the damage made by the truck that brought the slate for our patio. I couldn't water this morning, though. The wasps have built a nest right by the water spigot, and I got a bunch of stings yesterday as I was putting away the hose. We had planned to spray the wasps last night, but our heat-addled brains aren't good at remembering much these days. For all I know thousands of tiny grass shoots are shriveling in the cruel sun right now.

We'd better get a good storm today.

Hunkering

I went out before nine this morning to water the chickens and the garden, and to pick kale and chard, and almost passed out from the heat. After a cold shower, on this the second day of a week-long heat wave, I went into heat survival mode.

I went around the house and closed all windows and doors. I pulled down the shades. I drew the curtains. I closed off the guest rooms. In our bedroom I pulled off the duvet and stashed it away (the very sight of it was making me sweat). I piled some extra pillows on the bed and turned on the big ceiling fan. Then I got my laptop, took off my shoes and climbed in. And this is where I will stay until the universe takes pity on us and sends some cool air our way.

Did I mention that we don't have air conditioning?

Every year my husband proposes that we buy a window unit for the bedroom, and every year I talk him out of it. I worry that if we get an air conditioner I will lose all ability to tolerate heat and become dependent on the thing--I have a vision of myself, pale and wan from a summer spent indoors while the gardens around me wilt and perish. I worry that our increased demand on the power company will be the straw that breaks its back, and then nobody will have air conditioning, or lights, or even water (rural well pumps being powered by electricity).

It seems to me that we should be able to ride out this onslaught just like we ride out a winter blizzard. This kind of weather never lasts long around here. Five days ago people were wearing sweaters. Before we know it, the nights will be cool again, the days more bearable.

In the meantime, we will hunker down. Vermonters are good at hunkering, though usually they hunker around a wood stove. Me, I will hunker under the fan, and become one with the heat.

What's With This Weather?

Tomorrow will be the third day in a row of temperatures in the high 80s/low 90s. The plant life around here is revved up to max: the irises have shot up over night, the lupin blossoms are a foot long, the buttercups in the field have made an early appearance, the poppies are moribund, and the spinach, alas, is bolting. When I went out to give the hens some extra water this evening, they were panting. If this continues, next thing you know we'll be putting camellias in our hair and talkin' Southern.

The humidity, praise be, has not yet risen along with the temperatures, and this keeps me just alive enough to look around and notice stuff. Which mostly has to do with bird life, these days. The teeny humming birds have been about, as have their rivals, the bumblebees. A wren is trying his/her darndest to make a home in the little house attached to our back wall. But he/she keeps trying to force stiff sticks crosswise into the hole. Are all wrens this way, or is mine mentally challenged?

The phoebe nest in the front porch is brimming over with babies. The parents reused last year's, for which I'm grateful, since phoebes building a new nest make a mess that even the sloppiest construction crew would be ashamed of. The phoeblets in their nest have a funny way of all facing in the same direction, looking vaguely military. I worry about the parents, hunting food from dawn to dusk in this heat.

For days I'd been concerned about the robin nesting in the very center of the lilac bush against the back of the house. It's not been a good season for lilacs--a late hard frost did in most of the blooms--so it's been time to do the annual pruning. But I wasn't going to touch the robin bush until those amazing blue eggs had hatched, and the babies had fledged. Every time I went to the vegetable garden, which is close to the lilac, the robin would fly out, with a big, grouse-like whirr, all the way into the woods. I hoped she would learn that we were harmless, for her children's sake, before the eggs hatched.

This morning, when I watered the tomato plants, the lilac bush was silent. I peered in, and the nest was gone. Only a couple of yellow strands of grass remained around the trunk where it had sat. The dogs sniffed and sniffed the ground below it. Something must have come in the night--possum, raccoon, fox, who knows what? I only hope the mother bird woke up and got away in time. I know from my hens how vulnerable sleeping birds are.

The heat came on so suddenly, that Wolfie shed all his coat at once. When I brushed him today in the shade of the big white ash, I could have disguised a good-sized Lab with his brushings. Even Bisou let go of a couple of handfuls of her red coat. I brushed Lexi, too, though her arthritic body makes her leery of the brush.

I'm going to go refill the water tub/bird bath as soon as I finish this, so even the small birds can reach the water without falling in. We'll try to hold on to the idea of spring through tomorrow's heat, and hope for a return of primavera before the weekend.

Wildlife P.S.: as I was about to hit "publish post" Wolfie started barking, whining and generally going crazy in the direction of the woods. I opened the screen door and he rushed out, and a minute later came prancing out from under the trees, tail high, ears back, and the first painted turtle of the season in his mouth. Wolfie is addicted to painted turtles--has been since his first spring. And painted turtles are addicted to our backyard. They come out of the woods, where there is a nice safe swamp for them, and cross our backyard and take off down the field to who knows where. Wolfie catches them, and if I don't get there fast enough, crunches them in his jaws the way you would crunch into an apple. And eats the contents. What I'm wondering is, how did he know, just now, that that turtle was in the woods?