Surviving Mid-july ....

What an irritating week! No matter what little or large thing I did it seemed fraught with small irritating obstacles to whatever m y goal was! And it’s too hot and humid to get pissed off about things …. So I growled a lot this week at various things which all came out right with just a little more effort on my part and patience. Mostly this was the last part of closing my mother’s estate.

Anyway, I’m swimming in squashes and tomatoes from last week and this weeks’ CSA shares. Also, great tasting cantalope and watermelons from them the past two weeks! YUMMY! I somehow never bought watermelons for myself but I had no trouble eating up the one I had last week. 

There are two new people running the CSA pickup where I go. The previous lady has moved out of state to be nearer her family, I’m told. These kind people had our veggies waiting for us in very good sturdy tote bags, with our names tagged on the bags.

They can hold our veggies for us afor a couple of days if we miss the pickup day, which is very nice of them. We have a small group that uses this pickup point; there are several others in the metro area.

Re: Herb garden. The cilantro and parlsey are gone, my friend S. told me hers always die in the summer, and the basil doesn’t seem to want to do well. But the thymes, chives and oregano are still doing pretty well. I’m not getting a lot out of the thyme and oregano but there’s enough of it to use for what I want about once or twice a week. The CSA has been providing fresh basil leaves the past month so I’m using that or drying it.

One catnip plant is still doing okay the other has died. I grew these for the two cats that like them so much.

Re: Moonsoon possibilities and summer: Our dew points are up in the 40s and it feels like it.

The last 2 weeks the whole rest of the country has had truly horrid hot temps for the east coast and the midwest, but so far here we haven’t had unusual heat for us. We’ve had seasonal temperatures since May.

But we have two months to go yet and we could get some records temps.
Re water: I don’t think Phoenix has ever had water rationing but I’ll bet it’s coming sometime in the next few years.

Utilities and city government encourage water conservation but the more we conserve the more the water rates go up.

Our water shed got good rain this year so we’re in good shape. All our reservoirs in that watershed are full, that doesn’t include the big Lake Mead or Lake Powell up near Nevada.

Hoping for a good monsoon the next 2 months,
shamba

for Sunday dinner, July 4th!-
-corn on the cob roasted in solar oven ...
--tomatoes and squash sliced served and eaten raw ... or better with some vinagrette (SP?
--chicken breast and potatoes roasted in solar oven ...
-corn bread baked after main dishes in solar oven.

Peace, shamba

One more thing off my list of to do... Water related ..

this is partly prep stuff and partly just maintenance on the house and partly, "help, this needs to be fixed!"

My very old toilet has been on it's last legs for at least a year, leaking now and then, but it increased in leaking the past couple of months. Also, all the faucets in the house seem to all start leaking badly in the past few months. did they all decide to leak together to get me to do something?! I was amazed at how much water these drips totalled up to after I plugged a sink one day to see how much water was being wasted. Wow, waaay more than I realized.

So, after checking on kinds of toilets available and some other realated info, I got a new one yesterday and all the dripping faucets have been totally fixed. So, the new toilet uses much less water than the previous one (we found a date of 1968 on the old one!) that's about how old the buildings are but I didn't realize it had been THAT long.

Yes, someone had to bring all the stuff and install it. Everyone I know who used to help me with such things have aged or developed their own problems about doing moveing and lifting of things like old/new toilets. That's one thing about getting older, sometimes you have to pay more for things to be done than doing them yourself with help.

I've also been much better about using water generally. When a cup of bowl has a little water in it, I don't pour it down the drain anymore, I had it to a plastic pitcher I have and use it to water my plants. When I change the cats' water, I pour that in the plants and give the cats fresh water. I also have a 2 1/2 gal bucket under the hose faucet in the back of the patio so that catches anything there. there's not too much that's comes out of there unless I'm using the hose but whatever falls is usable from the bucket.

peace to all,
shamba