24-Hour Siesta Time

Well, we could say it’s finally getting a little warm here at the Funny Farm. An hour ago, it was pushing 120 on the back porch. Not quite there: on the high side of 118, maybe 119. It’s 5:30 now and the temp has cooled to 115.

As nothing, though. A little berg called Piedra, west of Casa Grande on the I-8 on the way to San Diego via San Luis, supposedly was the hottest spot on the planet yesterday, at a Mercurial 127 degrees.

Keeping plants alive is a challenge in a heat wave like this. You want to water them several times a day to keep them from dying of plant heat exhaustion, but when you do that, you drown the damn things. Even the ultra-xeric plantings around my house are threatening to keel over. I’ve covered the single rose bush that gets direct afternoon sun with strips of shade cloth and old sheer curtains, but even with that protection, its leaves are burnt. The other roses, which really are the yard’s only plants that react badly to extreme heat, are planted in shady spots and so are doing OK.

Interestingly, though, the vitex in back is wilting. That is distinctly non-good, because it has grown into a tree and it helps a lot with the pool privacy issue that I created by removing the Tree from Hell.

The one in front, however, has not wilted. So I’m a little concerned that the limp leaves have less to do with the heat than with some problem with the tree itself. On the other hand, the one in front is a volunteer. It may be a little tougher by dint of its circumstances. Or maybe it’s a different variety of vitex.

Naturally, a sprinkler head in the front courtyard broke yesterday, causing a geyser and turning a quarter of the fenced-in area into a lake. Gerardo came by in the heat to dig it out and replace it. He hates the sprinkler system Richard put in lo! these many years ago, and we agreed that when the weather cools down, he and his guys should rebuild it.

Tomorrow a repair-dude is supposed to come over and fix the barbecue, whose igniter has busted. As long as they were going to charge me for a service call, I arranged to have him clean it. That is a job, and I’m not real thrilled about having a workman laboring out there, on my dime, at 1:00 in the afternoon. I’ve thought about calling the company and canceling, but on the other hand, that could mean the guy doesn’t get paid.

I dunno. I may call tomorrow morning and suggest we put off the job till the weather cools or at least until they can get him over here early in the morning, instead of at mid-day.