The cold has arrived a bit early this year.

After the hail storms this past summer, the gardens were slow to recover.  I'm just now seeing small squash on the vines and green tomatoes on the stem.  The second storm just traumatized the vegetables and there isn't enough time to fully mature.  Most squash plants didn't even bear fruit.  The potatoes were small but at least there were some.

Tonight we have 34 Deg. predicted, so the tomatoes have to be covered and what's in the gardens will just have to cope with the cold.  It's tough to say if they can or not. They aren't typical September plants, that is for sure.

Early Fall cold temperatures means the wood stoves will be started sooner than  normal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Snake in the compound July 7, 2013

On July 7th this year, in between the hail storms we had another serpentine visitor.  Over by the wood piles a timber rattler had come to visit.  Now, a dog is smart enough to stay back when a rattler is rattling away.  Not so a cat.  One of the young outside cats was curious about the snake and the snake was not happy. He was all coiled up with his rattles making noise and he was ready to strike.  My friend threw something at the cat to scare it off, and I shot the snake.  11 rattles means it was around 5.5 years old.

Haven't seen rattlers around here for the past 4 years.  But this year this area of the mountains is in a real drought and the wildlife comes off the mountain to see what we have.

Hail in June and in August, 2013

It's hard to believe in the middle of summer, but we got two severe hail storms.  And they decimated the gardens where the vegetables were coming along nicely.  The first storm totally destroyed some young plants and shredded leaves everywhere.  It looked like a disaster had blown through.  Well, after 6 weeks some of the plants had recovered and were on their way again to producing vegetables when we had another more virulent hail storm.  WOW.  What weather we have had this summer.  Now, the plants are trying again but it will be time for the first frost in another 5-8 weeks and I don't think they are going to have time to mature.  Haven't had any summer squash since they got destroyed the first time. It's been a tough summer for gardening here.