Feeling the Heat
I don’t know if I’ve ever spent so much time outside, being hot, in my life.
The routine has been to get up at six which means I’m outside by seven - at which point I water things and do chores and generally run around like a mad-woman until roughly eleven when, blinded by the sweat dripping into my eyes, I stumble back indoors. That’s when I work (or try to work - this house is an unshaded, un-air conditioned oven) until five in the afternoon when I head back outside to feed horses and pull weeds until the mosquitos come out just before seven and drive me indoors once more (whew!).
Last week, I bought a pound of sea salt caramels from the grocery store (unheard of!) and proceeded to eat the whole box slowly but with determination - taking a little nibble and then dipping the exposed caramel into straight salt before taking the next bite. THAT was a wake-up call - because I’m never a salt monger. I started putting a little pinch of salt into my water bottle when the salt cravings came calling and that, combined with wearing a long-sleeved shirt that gets dunked in the horse trough every half hour, has been a fairly successful strategy for surviving the heat.
All was going well until yesterday - and then today - when I just couldn’t shake the stomachache/headache combo that was plaguing me. Taking the hint from some very strange food cravings (french fries, zucchini, and yoghurt) I did some research and there it was! Potassium. I’ve got to up my potassium because clearly I’m depleted. We’ll see if that does the trick.
But seriously - these high nineties can go take a hike somewhere far, far from here. Eighty-five sounds like a dream (and from me, you know that’s saying something!).
As I walk around moaning about the heat, I’ve also been thinking a lot about time. The way summers weren’t like this when I was a kid. The way we’ve been here, at at the farm, for less than five months. The way it can go from chill morning to scorcher in less than an hour. And then there’s the way that all of this - the culmination of all my experiences on this earth - amount to almost nothing in the grand scheme of the universe. Here I sit, heart on fire all the time, and yet all those big, wild feelings are so small in proportion. Isn’t that amazing, the way a shift in perspective changes everything?
I’ve been working on a necklace about it. Or sort of about it. Ombre turquoise, floral bursts, delicate chains. They haven’t quite come together yet, those swirling ideas, so I’m letting them soak a minute. I mean, everything else is moving so slowly right now I can’t see the point in rushing!
I feel like most everything we’ve done here so far has been about building habitat of some sort. Space for the horses, space for the dogs, space for us. And space for veggies - because a house without a garden just seemed impossible. And that big project I hinted at a few weeks back? She’s all done…
In California I grew what I could on our balcony, two years in a row. Then we moved back to Colorado and we made stock tank planters that served as our garden that first summer in the old house. After having the first few veggies leveled by hail, I got some metal hoops and kept sheets on hand so I could cover them at the slightest hint of storm.
The second summer, we got rid of our grass in the front yard and built raised beds. Those bad boys had PVC hoops and hail netting that thwarted many a hail stone… which meant that last summer, I had to go bigger. That, of course, led to the squash arch with its accompanying hail protection.
So this latest iteration of garden - a greenhouse frame wrapped in hail netting - is just a continuation of this weird, protected garden idea that I’ve been exploring.
Now I’ll be honest - I know I’ve taken on too many projects this year. In the case of the garden, I should have planted two or three tomatoes in pots and left it at that. But no - I had to go all in, like always. It looks pretty amazing out our front window, but this year’s crop…it’s going to be a little scraggly. Weird soil and hot temps and strung-out me do not equal prize winning produce. I’ll take what I can get. One home-grown tomato is better than no tomatoes at all!
Above, I said we were mostly building habitat out here. The key word there is “mostly.” When it comes to this stuff, though, I’m ripping up every plant I can get my hands on.
It’s called vetch - a lovely little native that also happens to be INCREDIBLY toxic to horses. It’s other name is locoweed because, when livestock eat it, they become spooky. They loose all coordination. They truly do become crazed versions of their former selves - and there is no cure. Eat enough of this stuff and the only end is putting your animal down.
Not all varieties of vetch are toxic, but for some your need leaf, flower, and seed samples to be properly identified - so it’s all got to go. Some people say to use chemicals. Some say to just pull up plants. Animals like to eat it, being as it’s sort of like alfalfa, but another strategy is just to make sure other, more palatable forage is available. The thing is, seeds can last in the soil for years and years and years - so it’s never going away.
Fortunately for me, the place I chose to put our horses is MOSTLY free of the stuff. I hand-pulled the couple of plants I found and feel pretty confident my equine friends are safe. But everywhere else? I’m going to be walking these many acres for years, pulling vetch till the day we leave.
And on that rather solemn note, I think it’s time I turn in for the night (so I can rise with the light). Every minute of sleep has become precious and I don’t want to waste a single wink!