It's summer?

I find it slightly ironic that today is the first day in about a month, that it is not actually raining. Or misting. Or just quit raining, or is sprinkling, coming down in buckets, or has low scud, fog and/or thick clouds.

This past month has just flat......sucked. The past week, the highs have been maybe 54 degrees at my place. A few days ago, I had a whopping 40 degrees overnight. Yes, just 40 degrees! What in heck has happened to summer here?

I mean, I know we do get the occasional summer season where it does tend to stay wet, but this is ridiculous! Last Sunday it rained so hard it stripped flowers off my hanging baskets, left huge puddles in low spots, and sent creeklets running down the driveway. Last night I had puddles in the sand at the arena, and not even the big dog would run and play in that slop. I have not had to refill the stock tanks for a couple weeks now-due to run off from the roof of the barn.

The greenhouse is suffering. The garden is suffering. And heaven knows my mood is suffering too. Bah humbug.

Dozens of green tomatoes, nothing ripe. The corn has stalled for about three weeks now, it needs heat to finish. I have had blossoms on the green beans in their too, for at least two weeks-again, no fruits. I've had aphid attacks on a couple peppers (first time!) despite keeping a fan going for good air circulation. I do have a pretty good crop of cucumbers, despite the lack of sun. None of the specialty melons are going to fruit, darn it. Way too late now, just not enough sun and heat.

In the veggie garden, things aren't much better. The cabbages and cauliflower are going great guns-and I do have some zucchini. In the other side I have green beans which have hardly any buds on them. The broccoli has sat at one size of head for about three weeks now and the brussel sprouts have stalled out also. Sigh. Big disappointment, for all my high hopes. A few days back I managed to get a hoop rigged up for the beans, but its been raining too hard to even try to get visqueen up and over it.

In the barn, the chickens are not flooded out-yet. They too, would appreciate some sun. I do give them a big armful of greens every day. The horses' feet are soft, and the pens are a mess with manure that's been very difficult to get picked up. It's pretty hard to talk yourself into mucking manure when the wheelbarrow sinks deeply into soft slay and mud.

Because of this awful weather pattern, very little hay has been put up locally. Its actually been a very good hay year due to the rain-we just haven't had four or five days in a row of dry weather for the process. I've been waiting on one hay farmer whose hay my horses do very well on....he called the other day, to let me know he hasn't been able to get anything up. I knew that, his weather has been no better than mine. A couple weeks ago I basically ran out of hay, and purchased a local round bale for the horses. It turned out to be very very bad in the center and was moldy enough it set the ponies to coughing something awful. This past week, I found a clean round bale, and they are very happy horses now-whinnying for meals.

On the up side of that, I can use the round bale for composting, now that I have a place picked out for that. Yes, it will mean some work, but in the end, having good compost will be a marvelous benefit for my continually growing gardens. But until then, may I say:

BRING ON THE SUN!!!