Monday, July 18, 2016


Summertime, and the Living is... HOT!


It's been hotter than the proverbial "Forty Hells" here. The humidity is off the charts and what little breeze we have feels more like a blast furnace coming off the water. The three H's (Hazy, Hot, and Humid) have hit with a vengeance and keeping the garden watered has become both a blessing and a curse.

This past Friday, it was 110 degrees out in the chicken house, even with the windows and run door opened. Luckily, I had a little fan for the coop and kept that running. It helped some. Yes, people, summer has indeed hit Eastern NC, and it's done so in a big way.

Speaking of hot chickens, earlier today, I headed up to our Dollar General and bought a $4.00 kitty litter box (extra points 'cause it was cheap and purple). When I got home I filled it half with sand, and half with wood ashes from our recent brush pile burning. Then I put it out in the chicken run, closed the gate, sat down in the shade and waited. The guineas figured it out first, which I admit was kind of surprising since they don't seem like the sharpest fowl in the barnyard. They had a large time in their first real dust bath. The chickens still haven't figured it out.


(Aren't our daughter's Light Brahma chickens beautiful?!)

Yesterday afternoon we had great excitement in the duck house. When I opened the back to clean it out, there were two eggs inside, the larger one a double yolker.  By the shenanigans in the pond, I would say they were most probably fertile. Speaking of which, we ended up with 4 drakes and 2 females.

As far as the herbal harvest goes: chamomile is doing great and I have been working at drying it along with some beautiful catnip that seems to be loving the heat. The basil is gorgeous and is just starting to want to bloom. Everything else looks really good and we have quite a collection of jars slowly filling up on top of our pie safe.

Meanwhile, out in the garden, full grown cucumbers just appear overnight.

For the past two nights, we have had a critter over at our side pond. I know this because at night when I take the pups out I shine the flashlight around (I'm nosey that way). Judging from the eye shine, if I had to make a guess, I would say it was probably a rather large raccoon. Most likely one that really likes corn and sunflowers, since something ate most of both from our back garden last month.

All this month my eldest Granddaughter has been here on the island with us. She has been a joy to have around and we are really going to hate to see her go home next weekend. She and my youngest daughter have been having a blast trying to "Catch 'em all" (Pokemon reference there). We also had our two youngest Granddaughters here for the last two weeks of June. They are ages 7 and 5, in a big way. They were so helpful with the chickens and ducks, and in the garden. Things sure got quiet when we took them back home.

So, as July slowly and surely leaves us for another year, and I try to come up with suppers in the evening that don't heat the inside of the house to the temperature of the outside, we know we have at least one thing to look forward to: August in Carolina is always hotter than July.

Forget Pokemon - I think I gotta catch me a pool!


~Sue Sue