It's late afternoon and I've just been out in the garden emptying the dehumidifier bucket on the plants. We're having a drought and the plants are suffering, mostly because they were stressed to begin with: I "rescued" them from the farm stand just before Peter chucked all the leftovers.

I found a small red pepper on one of the plants. When I put them in I wasn't sure whether I had beans or peppers, the leaves looking pretty much the same, and the tags having disappeared long since. But this one was a hot pepper-- very. Lots of capsacin. I chopped it up and added it to the jar of salsa I have in the fridge to liven it up. I wish I could get the good salsa, the hotter-en-hell variety, but nobody around here stocks it. I've tried making my own, but I haven't figured out the secret yet.

Also today I found seeds. My yellow day lillies. Pretty shiny black seeds they have. I gathered them and put them in a jar because I don't trust the nasty chipmunks not to eat them. When it gets to be fall, I'll scatter the seeds along the wall and cover them.

While I was out there, I gathered some dry grass (there's lots of that!) and sprinkled it over the plants that are suffering most. The ones I protected thus before seem to be surviving the heat and the drought. With a little luck I should be able to pull all the perennials through, and perhaps get a few vegetables into the bargain.

The town hasn't had to declare a watering ban yet. I hope they won't have to. But, even though it has often looked as if it were going to rain, it hasn't done so-- not enough to matter, anyway. The only good thing about this drought is that it doesn't matter about my roof. As Pa Kettle says, "Y'can't fix the roof when it's raining; and when it ain't, y'don't have to."

By the way, the reason I haven't been making journal entries is... a lot of things. It was too hot for a while. And I was too busy with other things-- for a while. And I was sick of working at the computer for a while. Lots of things. I thought about stuff, I just didn't do...

Maybe I was having a drought.