Summer of Extremes….

English roses that don’t stand at attention…backed by a grapevine

 

The heat of  summer has deadened any interest in going outside to look at what thrives.  Only the very early hours before 9am, and after 7, is it possible to leave the house. Windows don’t help in the viewing, as they can’t magnify the lady bugs, the Japanese beetles eating the new English roses, nor give more than a ‘iffy’ appraisal of mulch and water.

I still go out in the heat of the day, much like the crazy dogs and Englishmen we know….and inspect where the rats  from the fields behind  have eaten my Brandywine tomatoes.  They were asleep for the first month, then they woke up to the splendors of my Brandywines.  Big chunks were taken out of these tomatoes and left to rot on the vines.  My dogs seem to have a truce with them.  Since they rather stay in the cool tiled laundry room, it is doubtful they even know of the invasion.

There is little weeding I can do right now, as my left arm is in a cast, but when I am healed, there will be a mess of weeds to pull and carry to the hens.  Actually, if I could trust my 7 hens to weed the garden for me, without eating the good stuff…..I would shoo them in.  But I notice they also go for the beautiful Batchlor Buttons and the parsley planted around the new rose garden.  I read somewhere this spring that parsley and roses are good companion plantings…so I raked in a couple of packets of different parsley.  They all came up.  They are replacing the weeds and tall grasses with something that probably will stand ias a weed itself in a few months. Parsley is good, but right now, parsley stands neck and neck with the new roses. 

These new roses are from the David Austen species.  They are delicate roses for the first year or so, but then they come into their own.  They need to be staked. This will allow the blooms to be seen, as they are prolific bloomers, but the stems are weak, needing  support of canes. The best rose bush I have ever had, and now 15 years at least in the growing, is the beautiful “Heritage”.  It’s a David Austen rose, and a constant bloomer.  Fragrant, pale pink blossoms, many on a stem, standing 6 feet high, a marvelous and round bush.  Hardly any thorns to speak of.

This is the summer of extremes, it seems.  Horrendous heat, killing heat, and then monsoon- like rains and flooding.  Trees everywhere are feeling the results of years of drought and then the floods.  Then weeks of no rain, and the grass shrinks before your eyes, turns pale and disappears. There is fall, when much of the disregard and dismiss of summer’s chores can be repaired, but the damage is done.  What we suffer in our homes and property is nothing when you consider the plight of the farmer.

I’ve posted some of these tanka and haiku before. Some of them come from my first book, “A Seasoning of Lust”, published by Lulu.com. The heat of summer has dulled my brain, so I have little creativity right now. 

We mourn the weather of Summer, but this is a ripening season, where the bounty of the earth shows itself  with glee.  We just have to get through the heat of Hell.  I’m holding out for fall, with crisp, ripe apples.

Lady Nyo

–

Soft rains caress earth

A hand slides up a soft thigh.

Cherry blossoms bloom.

–

Sultry air disturbs

The sleep of husband and wife.

They pant without lust.

–

So lonely am I

My soul like a floating weed

Severed at the roots

Drifting upon cold waters

No pillow for further dreams.

–

 

The truth of longing

Has nothing of nice logic.

A matter of hearts

So uneven, exciting!

But most painful, nonetheless.

 

–

The moon floats on wisps

Of clouds extending outward

Tendrils of white fire

Blanketing the universe

Gauzy ghosts of nothingness.

–

 

When nature is known

Reason for awe can be found

In familiar sights.

Intimacy at the core—

Astounding revelation!

–

 

Human frailties

wounds that bleed such heated blood

leave a dry vessel.

Without the moisture of love

the clay reverts to the ground.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012