For now

In these early-September-like conditions, one thinks a great deal about mulch and water, and sometimes falls behind on harvesting. I still don't have the dried broadbeans in their jars, and already some zukes and cukes are getting past me.

It's all right about the oversized vegs as they are much appreciated sliced and tossed into the poultry zones.

Several beds have been left fallow (i.e., grown up in drought-tolerant weeds). The area outside the garden fence shown here at lower right was once rife with lettuces, tomatoes, zinnias, cosmos and even hollyhocks. Not this year. We only have the one well.

The corn is already head high and beans are in production. The contrast here between mulch and potato bed looks attractive at this resolution but the bed has become a weedy nightmare and haven for gophers. Might not be a good spud year. I'd lift them now but the ground is like iron.

The soaker hoses are running about six hours a day and it's not enough. At dawn and again in the evening I spray around, about five minutes to the bed, with the pistol-grip nozzle and that seems to help.

The house has done its best with the white roof, burlap window shades, tarps and hops vines but for the first time ever we broke down and bought an A/C. We're very ashamed but we're in our sixties, so ... Soylent Green should probably be a thing. It's the smallest unit we could find, and we've blocked off the living room and kitchen with sheets to confine the cooling to an area it can handle.

I've moved the cooking out to the potting shed, converted most lamps to seven-watt LEDs, am re-using the house water on trees and vegs, and am sitting out the afternoons in the dark living room, hydrating.

Today, though, they say it will only reach 88F. Maybe the worst is over. For now.