Well, not quite. Not in Kansas anyway. 100 degree temps for days now, and over 100 heat index. You know we never used to have a heat index to tell us how hot it felt. Anything over about 90 was just hot and once it got to 100? Well, then it was unbearable. I think I like that way of telling us how uncomfortable it is better.
Needless to say, it's hard to work in the garden and hard even to work inside in this heat. I've been thinking about having it all. I have friends who have absolutely beautiful homes, picture perfect, ready for the magazine spread and all of that. But they rarely work outside. I have friends who have beautiful gardens, work outside in vegetable gardens, and their houses inside are nice, to really nice, but rarely picture perfect shape. So the question arises. Can one woman do it all? I don't know. All I know is that in this heat, we either get up at 4 and start work outside, or work after 10 at night until the wee hours of the morning to get things done. I'm a night person, so the after 10 would work better for me. But it blows the day completely and with our grandkids here so much, I've got to get some sleep. Getting older isn't good.
So, what we did yesterday in the garden. We started pulling up the corn that had been shucked, and will cut it to go into the compost heap. Grass had started growing again too (in Kansas that's an ongoing battle in the summer). So I cleared about a five by five area completely. Today I hope to get out later and finish up the other two rows of corn, to get ready for fall plantings of beans.
Yesterday we gathered okra, beans, cukes. There are other things coming on, and I have got to get to cutting peppermint or it is all going to flower out and I'll have to start all over and wait to dry. Chamomile has about had it for the summer, and so we won't see it again until next year. The onions, garlic, elephant garlic were all pulled last week. We clean, and keep the small heads for replanting in October, for next years crop. We got a pretty decent crop over the last few weeks, so will have enough to last us all winter. The peaches are coming on and will be ready in another couple of weeks. Apples will be a little later. So canning time is near for those, and in addition to our apple trees, a neighbor has a standard size that she doesn't want to harvest this year and told us to take what we wanted, so we will have apples throughout the winter when I combine hers and ours, and of course will make her the applesauce, apple jelly, spiced apples, canned apple pie, etc,that I make out of them all, so she can enjoy them too.
Now for the house.... (insert non smiley face here). I did get laundry done. The floors are swept, kitchen is clean (thanks to help from hubby). But we've had two of our granddaughters this week and that's about all that's gotten done. I prefer to play when they are here, and they are so fun to play with, they are 7 and 6 and are fun to have around. So, what's left, I've got to dust...the dust bunnies are winning at this point. I've got to get the bathroom cleaned up today, the floor in there swept and mopped. I've got to get our bedroom and the kids room straightened up, swept, and dusted. The house won't be picture perfect, or ready for magazine cover, but at least if we have company I won't have to be looking around at things that could have been done.
A woman's work is never done. Isn't that the truth? So, right now it's hot outside and I'm sitting here typing, procrastinating. Gotta go get at it. After all, as my mom always said, it's not going to do itself.
Until next time.
