Presents and Gratitude

Yesterday a friend dropped off two of the biggest pots I ever seen! They sit in my back patio just outside the screen door, green, new and pristine waiting for dirt and plants. My friend also dropped off four bags of great potting soil. She, who had already brought me plants for the side planter box and planted them, is unhappy with the way the tomato there is not growing. In the new pots the tomato and one of the zucchinis will prosper because they will have more sun. Yum,yum!

Last evening my young friend, M, she who so valiantly painted for me last summer, repotted one of the rose bushes in the front yard. The night before she and her sister had transplanted the first one, the most fragile of the four. It was great fun to watch them work together. The roses look happier already.

Then last evening M lengthened the string on my kitchen window shade. This is such a simple solution to giving me a better airflow that I am amazed (stupefied actually) that I didn't think of it years ago. The kitchen was several degrees cooler this morning. I had had an opening that was about a foot square with the previous short string. Now the shade goes up all the way and I can still pull it down.

The first crooked neck squash is growing on the plant in the side yard. It may be ready for picking tonight. This will be the first food from my own garden and I intend to treat it reverently; cherish it and eat it! I can hardly wait.

The weather gave us a respite from heat yesterday and the house cooled beautifully overnight to 69 degrees. I can really see the benefit of trees, for where I still have them there is lovely cool shade. Where they have been removed, or ruthlessly trimmed back, the house, as well as the ground near it, bakes in the heat. The temperature actually rises as the sun abates and the house hangs on to the heat. Since it is supposed to be fiercely hot tomorrow and Friday.

Slowly I am switching to a summer schedule and trying to resign myself to the too long days, the too bright house and the intermittent heat waves that are inevitable. Summer is upon us even though, officially, it doesn't start until next week. It will go by swiftly as did spring.