Fireflies and summer heat

You know you’re in for wicked heat and humidity when the windows are condensed on the outside first thing in the morning.

The kitchen window first thing on a hot, humid morning

Yes, the pleasant days of early summer have been replaced by the sticky, suffocating midsummer weather. For most of my adult life, the first week of July marked the halfway point of vacation. I gave myself a little pep talk about how if I had a real job and had six weeks of vacation ahead of me, I would be thrilled. I was seldom comforted, especially if I had to do major course revisions before classes started. That totally sucked. This year and forever more, vacation will just go on and on.

With the onset of the hot weather, we get up early to do as much work outside as possible before we melt. One of the great pleasures of summer is taking my shower in the afternoon. Showers during the winter are largely a formality, taken in a hurry in the morning mostly to avoid going out in public with bed-head. During the gardening season, showers take on their true function of cleansing. Every inch needs to be scrubbed to remove sweat, dirt, blood from scratches and fly bites, dead mosquitoes, insect repellent, and sun screen. I emerge spiffy clean, pleasantly tired and sore from a good day of physical work. I love it.

We have dinner and watch TV. As the sun goes down, I walk to the apple orchard to shut the hens’ coop. It is a beautiful time of day. This last week, we’ve had rain showers in the evening, and the clouds often move off just enough for the last light to make them orange and pink. Then the fireflies start flashing. Green plants are the miracle of summer, but fireflies are the magic. They start low and fly higher as it gets darker. “Here I am,” they say in their own special code. 

Firefly in flight

I often catch one, just to prove to myself I still can, even though it hardly takes fast reflexes. I just find one hovering and scoop it up. I say hello and release it.

Hello, little buddy!

I finally got a picture of a male ruby throated hummingbird that shows his ruby throat!

Ruby throat of a hummingbird

The chicks are getting more used to their freedom. They still take to the coop in the heat of the afternoon sun, sitting in front of the fan at the coop door. In the cool of the day, they eat and drink under the sun shades.

Dining out

They can fly well enough to get up on the windbreak, which is a favorite hangout.

Meat chickens on the windbreak. The Cornish X Rock would never be able to pull this off.

Hilda gave them some watermelon rinds. These three were unimpressed, but all the watermelon was gone by the time they went inside to roost. There’s a learning curve.

What are these strange, red wedges?

The meat chickens are noticeably larger than the laying hens. 

Australorp female, left, is noticeably smaller than the meat chicken, right.

If we’d gotten Cornish X Rock, we’d be two weeks from butchering. We’re six weeks out instead. We’ll see how we fell when the time comes, but so far, the slower growth seems worth it. They are so much healthier than the Cornish X Rock couch potatoes. I noticed this morning that some are starting to make a few lame attempts at crowing. All of our meat chickens are males this year (we ordered them that way—they get bigger than females). I wonder if they will get aggressive before they go to freezer heaven.

The yard has been filled with baby ground squirrels. This little guy is only a little taller than the grass. They are cute until they eat all the peas.

Baby ground squirrels everywhere.

The Fourth of July came and went. Pat and Nancy were entertaining company from Norway. Kate was in Oshkosh with her family. That left only Jane to celebrate with us. The four of us had to eat a whole peach pie by ourselves. We were able to soldier through. Everyone got a piece of pie for the next day.

Fourth of July peach pie

After supper, the usual evening storm produced a fabulous rainbow that lasted a long time. Jane and I both took picture after picture. This is the one I thought came out best.

Rainbow

We lit snakes and threw snap-pops while we waited for the fireworks in Sharon. The birch trees are getting so big that we had to move our chairs to the north side of the deck to peek through a gap between them.

It was a pleasant, low-key day.