Landed In Oregon III

July 9, 2007

Already the days are getting shorter. It means that temperatures at 7 p.m. a couple of weeks ago would be 95 are now 90. These will be the hottest days but they will be shorter days.

When I was working 8 to 5 I dreaded shorter days. Even before then. Remember when they meant that summer was coming to an end and school would soon be starting. The summer sale catalogs are appearing. When 8 to 5, it meant less daylight, it meant I could look forward to going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark.

I so much wanted to work -- 8 to 5 was fine -- that I did not really, really realize what a person is missing. Flowers, for example. School buses picking up and returning children. All kinds of folks shopping in the grocery store. The bank at 10 a.m. Downtown at 11 a.m. or 2 p.m. Not for a second did I ever consider that I might be giving up some things to work 8 to 5. Kind of like the wind in Landed II. I thought my life was Life. I never considered other alternate lives.

August will be as warm as July but in August -September the mornings will start getting cooler.

Mosquitoes. Pass Creek has mosquitoes. Not a lot. If one watches the water around one’s home, even fewer. They are so small they can hardly be called mosquitoes. With my eyesight, I can barely see them. And they are cowardly. Not in your face bold. Not morning, noon, and night. Rarely in your face or on your arms at all. If wearing slacks one might not be bitten at all. Not during the sunny part of the day. They don’t care for one’s shins or quads. And now, if you have been lulled to not worth being concerned, they do like the backs of one’s legs, particularly at the knee and below. Sneak up behind you. Cowardly.

On the way back from town, on the private road into the Refuge, Sharon saw the first turkey chicks of the season. Two hens and about a dozen chicks -- nearly junior high graduates. One has to ask where the hens have been keeping them all of this time. On the other hand, the hens were pretty nervous and proud.

July 10, 2007

The lettuce has nearly all bolted. (When you visualize that, what do you see?) Queen Anne’s Lace abounds. The bark of the Madrone is peeling. The skin beneath the bark is a yucky green -- like a humungous anaconda --until the new bark forms.

July 11, 2007

Hot. 104. Thunder and lightning starting about 10 p.m. and lasting 4-5 fours. Rain starting at 11p.m. More than expected. In July and August, any rain is a surprise. In the Valley, 2,000 lightning strikes and 20 fires. Little sleep. Woke up dehydrated, hungover.



July 12, 2007

To the coast. Sixty-degree weather. Great. Walked on the beach. A little ice cream. A little sea food. Life is good.

There is more to be said about bees. Each year, it takes awhile for insects to get started. By summer there is lots of green stuff for a insect to eat and lots of insects. Mid-summer comes the insect carnivores. My raised beds are patrolled by yellow jackets. They not only check both sides of the leaves but also crawl into the nooks and crannies of the beds.

We raise sun flowers in the beds. For a few years they would become shredded and we did not know why. The finch love young green sunflower leaves.

The raised beds also draw insect loving grosbeaks.

There was something else I wanted to say about bees, but spaced. Maybe next time.

July 13, 2007

Watered the Upper Pasture. Watered between the pasture and the creek. I have a fir and a sequoia in there. They are doing fine. The Upper Pasture has a long stretch of creek frontage and the creek is pooled there. Each year we have a couple of pair of ducks that arrive early and raise a family. But when I look at the pool I think trout and look. Rarely, I see a fish. Smallish.

In the Lower Pasture I unintentionally jumped Fiona. She was at the upper end, between the fence and the creek, where it was shaded, cool, and she could look down over the property to see if anyone or thing was coming.

The recently planted trees are doing okay.

July 14, 2007

I remember. Outside the study window is the hummingbird feeder. Cappy, our white and deaf Manx, likes to lay on top of the computer tower and watch the hummers and dream. In July, after a few hot days, bees start coming to the feeder. Not a honey bee. A dark bee. Sometimes it seems they are more interested in chasing each other off the feeder than tanking up on sugar water.

July 16, 2007

Fifty-five degrees this morning. Yesterday it was forty-nine. We have been getting marine air to start the day. It burns off about ten a.m. Very nice.