It’s once again very hot and very humid here with excessive heat warnings today and tomorrow. It will feel like it is well over 100 degrees. The air is like soup. And my friends in Wisconsin are battling rain and floods and my friends out west are dealing with forest fires. I can’t help thinking Mother Nature is pissed off. And I don’t blame her.
I watered everything this morning and I’ll be staying in for the rest of the day as humidity and I don’t do well together. Oops! Have to put more water in the birdbath, though I’m not seeing as many birds there as I did earlier in the summer. My lonesome dove often sits on the edge of the birdbath for a spell and the finches take quick drinks, but otherwise, I’m not seeing the catbirds (who love baths!) or the robins. All of that means summer is winding down, which, as much as I’ve hated the weather this summer, makes me sad.
I spoke firmly to the heavenly blue morning glories this morning and asked them when I am going to see flower buds. So far, I’ve received no answer. I’m getting impatient!
The limelights are turning pink, another sign of the seasonal change. That bush, which used to be upright, is now hanging down to the ground due to the constant rain pummeling it until it bent over under the weight. I’m not happy about that. I’ve done my best to nudge it upright, but it’s not working.
Most of the bee balm has dried up and is finished for the season, but there are a few flowers here and there.
I started in on the deductions yesterday and worked for several hours until I felt the beginnings of a primal scream. So I stopped. More today.
Thanks for all the tips on the butterfly and nightshade. It’s Eastern black nightshade and I don’t see it anywhere else. There’s lots of discussion as to if it’s really as toxic as people think it is. I don’t have a pet that will chomp on it and most animals know not to. Most of the discussion is about its effect on soybean crops and not on animals or humans. Since it lives mainly in the woods, I’m leaving it there.
Happy Tuesday.
good … something you don’t have to tend (nightshade)!
we are overdue for rain and thankfully some is forecast for today and later this week. i am happy about that … things are looking brown and crinkly around here (plus i love rain)!
glad you’re making headway on the taxes. not fun, i know, but will be good to have done. hope you have a suitable reward ready!
hope this is a good day for everyone!
kathy in iowa
3 more hours on deductions today. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but Don has yet to do his deductions and he’s making me crazy!
hope that light is super-bright for you both to get the deductions, etc. in on time!
kathy in iowa
We’ll get them in on time! I’m determined!
Soupy air here, too. But at least the sun is trying to burn through, today. Light helps. Hottest, muggiest Summer I can remember. Ugh.
Me too. I hope this is not a portent of things to come.
Just recently with all the forest fires and hurricanes and all manner of natural disasters in the world I told my husband how glad I was we lived where the weather was mostly boring here in good old Wisconsin. Now I hear our sump pump, which goes years without use, clicking on and off in the morning after each nightly downpour. And I too only go outside to water the potted plants and then hide in the air conditioning rather than deal with air so wet it takes your breath away. The scariest thing is the sudden flooding. Dean had to take a detour home last night when the freeway between here and downtown flooded for the third time in a week. So much for boring!
The flooding is so dangerous, Kay. Be careful!
It’s been cool in the morning and overcast, giving way to clear skies an de low 70’s here. But it’s getting chilly at night. I’m wondering if we’ll get an “Indian summer” this year. Had to take my cat to the ER on Sunday…he was showing symptoms of urinary blockage. Turns out it was and we got him in just in time. Another few days and he would have died. He’s been in the hospital for two nights and I miss him and fret that he’s stressed and wondering why his family isn’t around him. Hoping he can come home today…I’m calling the hospital after the staff is done with their morning rounds.
Oh, your poor cat! I know how frightening that is. I hope he’s doing better today. The worst thing is not being able to explain what’s happening to them!
to wendy t …
hope by now (8:30 pm central time) your sweet cat is home and you all are feeling much better!
kathy in iowa
How you describe the ‘nature’ all around you just speaks of Fall, doesn’t it? Yesterday evening, we were slightly cooler here in SoCalif and I felt it; the changing light and just the feel of the air. It does something to the sounds in my ear, that air. You have to live here a long time to ‘get’ the subtle seasons of my part of Calif. Many people I’ve come across over time say, “Calif has no seasons” but, we do. I look forward to autumn because I’ve hated our summer, too; has been ‘way too hot for me, and humid; seems few got a good one this year. I hadn’t been aware of the problems in Wisconsin and my heart, too, goes out to them and the readers here from that wonderful state.
I sorta couldn’t believe they actually had wildfire on Maui. I was there a long time ago and it was so incredibly green and tropical and wet, even upcountry. But I understand they got burn/fire right into Lahaina on the beach. Such dire predictions have recently come out about Calif’s future…I’ll be dead, but it troubles me anyway…if something isn’t done soon to repair the wounds of climate change/global warming. We need to let the land repair itself. Same for the oceans. Like, I was, at one point thinking, “Okay, just close Yosemite National Park; nobody goes in for a year. No human footprint.” (This was before the recent wildfires in their vicinity.) It gets trampled by too many tourists…and trash. Or, like, where I am, we’re lucky we don’t turn into a dust bowl because crops are grown year ’round with the land being prevented to lay fallow; it’s all about money-money-money. (I feel so, anyway; rather than about feeding people.) I just feel like we’re not only angering Mother Earth, as you say, Claudia, but we’re also just wearing her out.
I remember ‘sort of’ seasons in San Diego, but they were too subtle for me!
I agree about Mother Nature.
Believe it ,We just sent more teams out to fight wild land fire in Hawaii
and Here, we are still Smoking and burning.. The thing I find ridiculous, is the number of people complaining about their useless, Dangerous, Fire Works, over Labor Day.
We have an absolutely, NO Burning of any kind Order in place across the State. Haven”t we lost enough folks?
Property in the Millions, and lives that can never be brought back. I believe Mother Nature is trying to get some peoples attention.
Claudia, your pictures everyday help me feel some joy in these really Tough days. Thank You for the time you put into your Blog and giving us a place to talk it out. This is the only Blog I read any more.maybe you know what I’m talking about when I say so many ads you can hardly find the words, Very talented person but a lot of faithful viewers have brought her to her (Hi) Place and seems all is left ad and more ads and complaints. ? and I’m not talking about Mocking Bird Hill Cottage, I think we would all be open to more adds if you were of a mind to, and if it would help you out. We take a lot away from here, and you certainly should be receiving compensation for your time hard work and talent. I’m just saying I don’t think anybody would mind thats all Thank You Claudia for your time Judy A-
Judy, words cannot express how horrifying all of this destruction must be. I can’t even conceive of what you must be going through. Talk about it here all you want. We are here for your, my friend.
Wanted to say, too, that I saw your I/g post about the ‘Mi amor’ which I think was an ACLU source; I’d seen it earlier elsewhere online and every single time, I shake my head in disbelief, tears springing. It’s hard enough on the adults but the children don’t have the capacity to yet understand and can only react to the circumstances they’re thrown into; it’s unconscionable. As we live our daily lives, this horror is happening right under our own roof. I wasn’t blessed with parenting but I know I’ve read that the first three or four years of a child’s life are very significant for all kinds of mental and physical growth, like the trunk of a tree supporting many green-growing branches for all the years later. What are we doing to these precious young souls…
They will be damaged souls. In some cases, beyond repair. My heart simply breaks for them. I cannot take it all in or I fear I would go mad.
If I was there, I would hold your hand and we would cry together, Claudia. Anybody with a heart can’t stand this…
xo
Oh, Claudia! The rains were horrible north of us last night towards LaCrosse, terrible flooding, but the Madison area is in the eye of this next round for later today. Heavy rain, hail and wind. So many roads are washing out. My husband started school today ~ teachers/ not students until next week ~ and, of course it is SO hot and humid! It will be a blessing if it would be cooler when the kiddos return next week. If people could only imagine going to work, and work includes 25-30 kids per hour, with heat and humidity, and trying to teach. It can be overwhelming. (Let’s hope and pray BETSY doesn’t arm them all, too.) Very few, if any, schools have AC in the midwest.
My Hydrangea looks nearly the very same as yours do at the moment ~ as if they are bending to Mother Nature, I think. The Hummers seem frantic right now. I don’t see many Robins, I think they are a few blocks down at the river at this point in time. The wrens have headed south already, but the many sparrows, doves, and finch are populating the feeders (and bottoms) here. I hope you can stay cool and inside today. Good luck with the numbers!!
So scary, this rain and the floods.
We don’t have A/C out here, either. The only places that have it are out west and in the south. It’s over 100 degrees here today – it would be next to impossible to teach or learn in those conditions!
I grew up where I live in SoCalif right now and nobody had air conditioning in town in those years (1950s-1970s). We’d open windows wide but the rooms were stifling and some teachers would take their students (whole class) outside to sit under shade trees. Mostly, we sweltered. Today here, central a/c is de rigueur for every new house built. On the other hand, the houses in my neighborhood are over 60 years old and some of us have had a/c conversions (to the furnace). One neighbor is currently installing a new system of furnace/air conditioning (central a/c) and she told me she could buy a car for what she’s spent on this upgrade (leaving me to shudder at such a cost; I personally can no longer live in SoCalif if I don’t have a/c). My system is old (furnace, 1980s; a/c 1990s) and I’m keeping my fingers crossed everything holds because we have run the a/c nonstop in this horrible humid/hot summer. Frankly, I use it 12 mos of the year.
We didn’t have A/C when I first moved to San Diego, but now? You would have to have it. The weather has changed that much.
Chris, you must be so uneasy. Take care! Be careful out there! I was shocked to learn that many schools in your neck ‘o the woods don’t have a/c; my husband used to spend a lot of time in Iowa and the summers, according to him, are brutal. (Of course, school is mostly out in summer, I realize that; still…)
I’m planning (early) my trip to Wisconsin next April-May. Selfishly (and this isn’t a time to say anything in jest; I don’t mean to be inappropriate when folks are suffering), I don’t want it to wash away! (No more than I want my California to burn up with wildfire.) Door County*** and Madison are on my list…where else should we go? I’d thought of Lake Geneva; I wanted to take that 2-hr mail boat cruise; saw a thing on TV about it once; so fun…but they don’t do the mail boat cruises til June; darn!
***I’ve been getting a tourism-newsletter online from Fish Creek in Door County for a few years. I fell in love with the idea of it, and going there, gosh, 20 years ago, when reading the romance novelist LaVyrle Spencer’s book called BITTER SWEET. I used to read her for de-stressing from work (office job; crunching numbers) at the end of a long day when my husband was working nights, just to totally get out of my head. She would write on location…she did this in Camden in Maine, too…and do a mix of historical facts/mood with the romantic angle (she had pretty good character development) and, in those years, I really loved her feel-good novels; she wrote 1970s-1990s and then retired; now in her mid-70s; from what I can see, has lived her entire life in Minnesota; still there…
Yes…Mother Nature is pissed! It is steamy here right now…tomorrow promises to be 69! Can you believe that? But…we have to get through today first. 2-4 inches is predicted. I am thankful that the central part of Wisconsin got rain…they were in a drought I heard. But 7-12 inches? Too, too much, too quickly. Those were some persistent storms last night!
My hydrangeas are looking like yours…I think it’s the weight of the flowers that bends the stems. But…they are beautiful. Stay cool…we’ll try to stay dry! ;)
Way too much rain. The ground can’t absorb it! Stay safe!
Donnamae, I wish I could steal some of your rain for SoCalif. My husband said today that our humidity is the only thing keeping more bushes and trees alive right now since it’s been SO long since we’ve had rainfall. (So I better stop cursing the humidity.) Stay safe in that deluge! Such huge events, with lava and flooding in the Hawaiian Islands, you in the upper Midwest (and Claudia, too) with rain-rain-rain; we here in the West with wildfires and drought. Feels so catastrophic. Earth is all stirred up!
Claudia, It does seem that mother nature is on a tear. I have to water things early or late. It doesn’t matter how much I water, the heat and with a bit of wind today….things dry out quickly. I think the birds are staying in the shady woods. Staying cool inside, because I just melt in this heat. Blessings, xoxo, Susie
I melt in it, too, Susie. It’s dreadful for everyone, including the animals and birds.
Your flowers still look lovely. I have not seen the catbird or a robin recently either.
Marilyn
I hear the catbirds, but I don’t see them.
It is 6:00 on here and was still feels like 103 degrees here in Central Pennsylvania…I know that it was up to 107 earlier today…I believe that Mother Earth is crying for help but not enough people are listening…there is a reason that these things are happening!
Yes, there is. And Trump is undoing everything that Obama put into place to try to make a difference.
I could scream. I really could. Why alter good things that so much work was put into; what is the frick’in point? Partisan, truly? I think I need to go kick something (like a can; I’m non-violent as a rule; and I don’t want to hurt my toe). Mindblowingly frustrating.
Claudia, an aside. Thanks for allowing me to give a shout-out here to Chris and Donnamae, your Wisconsin readers. (I’m not trying to take over your blog.) People here, and you, were so compassionate when I was so fearful in our Calif wildfires last December, writing about it here on MHC, that I don’t want to ever not return the support of these lovely cyber friends. Your readership/community here is just…the BEST. Really good folks. You, too; always.
Because we have a petty man in the Oval Office who is filled with jealousy. So he reacts to that by negating everything that Obama did that is good.
I love the conversations that happen amongst my readers. That makes me very happy!
i have no signs of morning glory flowers either! Healthy vine but no flower – what gives?
I don’t know! Usually they have started blooming by now!