Oh. And the wind has been outrageous. The sky this afternoon was the color of brown/grey/blue that you see in the sky at the beginning of "The Wizard of Oz." And, yes, I know that the opening to that movie is frequently shown in sepia tone these days, but that is exactly what I thought of while driving home today.
The worst thing about this hot, dry, windy weather is that, last weekend, we planted a bunch of new things in our gardens. When I came home from work this afternoon, everything was wilting. The formerly perky poppies had collapsed in a heap. The crisp peppers were limp and wilted. I walked the yard with a watering can and put the hose next to our new shrub willow to let it soak.
A couple of years ago, just after we had planted a gorgeous little willow tree in the backyard, we had a week of 90-degree-plus temps, and the tree was never the same. We had to replace it the following summer. But that was in the late summer, at least. We were doing our best to avoid that problem this year by doing all of our planting early in the year when temps typically range from lows in the 50s to highs in the 70s.
And then the last two days happened.
Even in the house our plants are wilting. We've refused to turn on the air conditioning, since it just doesn't make sense this time of year. Yes, I know that not turning on the a/c when it's 90 degrees out in May is like refusing to put on a coat when it's 30 degrees outside because it's just not supposed to be cold. But that's why we've had fans on for the past couple nights.
We've been told we're going to have a storm system go through tonight and into tomorrow. That should drop the temperature, along with dropping some rain. If not, I'll be watering the yard tomorrow. And whether the air conditioner is on or not, it's way too early in the year to start watering the lawn.
No. Really.
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