August this year has been a mixed bag this year. While my home town didn’t get the devastating rainfall that Eastern Vermont did (8 inches in one evening in Saint Johnsbury), we still had some flooding which badly damaged a number of roads, Route 18 having a section of road completely washed out and the local Walgreens being partially closed for weeks after getting flooded out. Things are slowly but surely being repaired and looking more normal. Walgreens is open now, though you can still see the interior floor damage especially near the entrance.
I went light on the veggie garden this year. Pushing 70 years, my back isn’t quite as eager for gardening anymore unlike the rest of me. Though I planted only two short rows of wax beans, they did well. Potatoes and carrots seem to be doing all right, but I haven’t dug them up yet, so I don’t know how well they actually performed. The single parsley plant I have has been quite enthusiastic so I anticipate getting a good supply from that to garnish soup with. Plenty of rain helped.
It’s a major change from previous years when abnormally dry weather was starting to look like the norm. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way with soaking rains and grumbly thunder showers. One which went through last night rumbled for the longest time before it decided to drop some moisture. Not a lot though, just one tenth of an inch.
Both this year’s rain and the rain we had last year has had a beneficial effect. Biting insects like the black fly and mosquito have really boomed along with those annoying little gnats which try to fly up your nose for reasons known only to themselves. Various butterflies have increased such as Eastern Swallowtails and assorted skippers. Also, the bumblebee population has rebounded quite a bit after looking for a while like they were on the way out. I’m careful not to use any pesticides or herbicides on my property which could impact their population. Also reappearing are sweat bees.
The ones I see are the green sweat bees like the one above. There may be other types but they don’t catch the eye with bright colors like the insects I saw. Sweat bees get their names because they are attracted to the minerals and salts we sweat out during a hot summer day. They come in a number of varieties, some of which are solitary and some forming small colonies, not quite a hive as each female has her own brood, formed mostly for defense. They are very small, serving as important pollinators for native flora as well as commercial crops like squash, sunflowers and tomatoes. My lemon thyme bloomed profusely this past month and attracted hordes of these tiny insects. While I guess the females can sting, they are very unaggressive. You would really have to disturb them quite a bit to prompt a self-defense attack and they’re so little, it’s not likely to hurt that much. Simply leave them alone and enjoy the bright emerald color they bring to your garden.
Last week, while doing my morning walk, I spotted this Brobdingnagian creature perching herself on the seed-head of a Queen Anne’s Lace.
She’s a variety of orb-weaver spider native to America, her abdomen from what I could tell was easily an inch long. I feel safe in calling her ‘she’ as the male of her species is much smaller compared to her. Quite often less than a fifth of her size, he needs to approach with caution when intent on mating as she is very apt to eat him. The tiny peacock spiders of Australia have a similar problem but try to solve it by being brightly colored, dancing back and forth as well as engaging in an elaborate semaphore with their front legs. If they do it right, they get a date but if not, they’re dinner. It’s a rough world out there.
Now the sky is opening up again with rain and rumbles of thunder, putting an end to any hopes of weeding this afternoon. Special weather statements were issued about a strong thunderstorm in my area but so far it seems to be skirting us, just grumbling in a threatening fashion and dumping some more rain on us. Oh, well. Tomorrow’s another day.
Take care and have a happy September.
