Its not summer yet but. Its summer
Its the second high 90s heatwave of the season already, and some of our reservoirs are so low they've opened all fishing - they'll die if they remain.
I add more layers of compost and straw, put my potted plants into bin lids to catch water, wonder where I can get shade cloths for free or cheap when everyone needs them now.
Even after the hottest days pass, its staying in the 80s. No rain in the forecast. Barely any this past spring. Not enough snow, not enough snowmelt. I wonder what the reservoir I've only seen as a vast lake looks like... emptied. Drying out in the sun.
Lots of trees have died this year, already. Too many years of stress in a row, it weakens you in ways you can't see. Until, all at once, brown crowns sweeping the landscape where evergreen once stood. They say we'll lose all the ash trees within a decade or two, to another pest. Another pressure point pushed to fault.
I gather rain barrels on the sides of the road and stack woodchips around the young trees and I teach people about native landscaping and how the plants built to grow here thrive. Or, they did, before the days on weeks of killing heat became the norm.
And then there's the fires. The smoke blocking out the sky, the ash raining down and covering everything. I wonder if it'll help, in the places where the land still holds memories of frequent fires, ones that restored as much as they took. I wonder how many summers I'll spend taping clingwrap over my windows and choosing the heavier option for the trailer because, well, metal siding is less likely to catch from an ember. I wonder how much will be lost to the flames.
I water deep into the clay ground, grateful that it will hold the water instead of let it sink away. Asking once, twice a week to be enough. I plant more than I ever have, desperate to outrun the hikes in food costs I know are coming. I try not to flinch when people complain to me about gas prices, who've been silent on the war and the administration of terror who drove them up.
I plan for a future where things will continue to grow, because I have to believe it will happen and because I could not bear the alternative - to give up and be part of assuring they will not.
I share flowers and bushes and I hope they will survive what's coming.
I plant seeds and hope that doing so creates a world where I will get to see them grow.
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