Good morning, everyone ~
Well, we ARE foolish humans, so we choose the hottest month of summer to transplant some shrubs. Needless to say, they are doing poorly in the 105 degree temps. It's one of those "what was I thinking!" moments!
Pretty much my life has been to water everything at least every day, and some things twice a day. The nights are cooling off again, into the low 70s, so at least there is a little bit of a break when everything might even be able to absorb some of that water. Everyone, people, dogs, plants, are pretty wilted looking around here. I think this is par for the course for summer in the desert. Only the fat lizards and the dragon flies look like they don't mind the noon day heat.
I have observed two rivaling families of birds at the bird feeder. There's family number one, with mom, pop and two fully grown babies, and a group of 6 (I don't know their relationships). Some days I think there is more posturing and squabbling than feeding going on. Interesting to note, though, they never fight about the water. Whomever drinks whenever, and sometimes birds from the rival groups drink together. I guess they are well fed enough to squabble over tasty sun flower seeds, but know better than to fight over the life and death issue of water in the desert.
Each of my 4 little fruit trees are hosts to one lovely garden spider. They are each getting fairly big. I like to think that they are sisters from the multitude of little tiny babies that I saw earlier in the year. I don't think they speak English, but I encourage them to eat all the little bug-a-boos that might want to snack on fruit trees each time I see them (which is every day recently, since we're at the height of irrigation weather right now).
Speaking of fruit trees, they are soon going to start looking rather strange as I have just purchased some clothes pins to start weighting down branches to increase the branch angles. I have written in my journal several times now, that I MUST not let the orchard grow bigger than these few trees and a hedge of raspberries or I will become enslaved to it... however, I am thinking that maybe ONE or TWO more trees next year won't add THAT much more work, right?! Maybe a few crab apples - hardy, pretty, and something I don't have to "harvest" per se, unless I feel like crab apple jelly? Help, help! I feel my self getting in wayyyy over my head :-)
I wrote to the potential political candidates here about NAIS asking their opinions. We are not a big Ag state (although lately we've been growing a huge crop of houses!), so I wasn't surprised that only one even bothered to write me back. He said that NV had a long history of independence and not necessarily buying into certain federal regulations by either declaring them unconstitutional (state-wise) and/or not "having the budget" to enforce them. I thought that was an interesting response. The more I learn about NV and how she works, the more interesting it gets...
My little pecans don't appear to have survived the dog days of summer. I'm continuing to water, but they have gone back to looking like dried up sticks. The dragon flies seem to like them as hang-outs, though, so I'm continuing to water them "just in case" - and figure worst case scenario, the become permanent dragon fly perches.
Well, time to go water before it gets too hot for anyone to absorb it. Enjoying life "down on the farm" (OK, down in the sand). Take care, everyone. Many blessings to you. Karla
