Post 4th of July 2013

 The 4th of July... the middle of the Summer?

I used to think that the 4rth of July marked the middle of the summer. It really doesn't. It is just one month into the Summer if you are going to school or teaching school. The middle of the Summer break occurs around the middle of July.

There are some exceptions. School sometimes around here is out around the first week of June and it starts back soon after the middle of August.

While going to school, in the Bay area, in the 50's and 60's school was out around Memorial Day or a little after and never started back until after labor day... September.

As a retired old F_ _ _ T we plan around the kids going to school instead of when they are out. As teachers we would always plan when the kids were out and we were out rather than the reciprocal. So now we are planning a Disney trip for September when the kids are back in school.

The summer heats up here to the triple digits usually in July. This year we didn't have to wait, and the tripple digits, temperatures that are over 100 made their presence known in June.

This resulted in early apricot ripening. In many years, the Tilton apricot tree is just starting to produce ripe apricots on July4th. This year it is near the end of the crop and some of the apricots got "baked" on the tree. Its been pretty hot and the well functioning air conditioner is fabulous for keeping us 78 degrees every day and night despite the 108 to 111 degree heat.

Annual Front Yard Tera Cotta Garden

This year I was a little late getting the front garden annuals in pots started so no petunias planted.. they are pretty much gone in a normal year around here by the 4th of July. So on a "hot" year.. it doesn't make sense to plant them. In their place are the beautiful bicolor marigolds. They are bright orange for the majority of the blossom but have some highlighted red brick colored petals on the inside. These pots take a beating in the summer heat. The really big pots do much better than the smaller ones even when all the pots are watered each day.

The nectarines in the front produced nicely this year. They are pretty fragile and don't stay well on the tree. I passed out as many as I could while they were ripe to neighbors and a few to my postman.

Today it is Monday.. and no lawns should be watered. Our city has imposed a watering schedule for landscape watering. We are supposed to water on every other day... in the morning. My annual flowers have to have it everyday. I stand over them and make sure there is no run off.   They are a true delight on the North front entrance patio. From the street you would not no this secret garden exists.

The Round Robin Sketchbook Project

The round robin art project has started this summer and most people in the round robin have received their sketchbooks and have sent or are about to send their first rounds to their partners. We picked up the Lindsay to Sue's this weekend. Linz's is unthemed but has a couple of nice drawings in them. Sue is about to produce her first one... birds and will get it out soon.  I have done a prilimary planning one to more the one I received from Kelly on.  The message from Camie is that hers is ready to ship this week... so it looks like the arms of the spider through the mail are ready to pounce the priority mail sacks.  7 people in the family have agreed to be a part of this adventure. The most I have heard of that have tried this is 4 and most of them did them on a single sketchbook. So we are really bumping up the curve.

: ) Pat