for about 15 minutes this morning, the sparrows became enamored of my asparagus patch, which just started going to seed. lots of them picked at the ground, but some of the more devil-may-care sparrows hovered & pecked seeds off the fronds mid-air. they are awfully cute.

OH dear. This is a very hot topic here. You may get some "not so nice" comments. First off I love cats, I have 4. They were brought in as strays and they have never set foot outside since (except my Ernie who likes to run out the door in the spring, I grab and bring right back in). Cats are killers of native wildlife as you have seen. There are many reports of the damage cats do to wildlife including birds. I am sure someone will send you links. There are also ways to let your cat enjoy the outdoors without puting your birds and critters at risk and I am sure you will get those links too. Please consider the safety of you cat and the safety of the critters and keep the cat inside unless you are with it. One other thought, and I am fighting with this now, your neighbors may not be any too happy with your cat in their yard. My neighbors let their cat out. First, I am a certified wildlife habitat with 5 nestboxes and 5 feeders, I have the right to not have the neighbors cat killing my critters including the frogs and toads in my pond, the cat does not belong on my property. Second the cat pees and poops in my garden. I should not have to put up with this , it's MY property. As you can tell I'm quite angry about this. Also I worry that any day I am going to see that cat dead in the road, I like the cat and would be extremly upset. Please reconsider letting your cat roam. It's not safe for the cat, your critters or birds and your neighbors will be happier. Hopefully someone can send you the link to the cat outside enclosures (I think Starlinka has one). Bells don't really work as birds do not know bells as being a threat until they have been attacked. Bless you for taking the cat in , now please keep it and the critters safe.

I've heard it said by some of the more extreme composters, "If it was once alive, you can compost it." Boot leather, genuine rubber, cotton or wool clothing, dairy, horns, clam shells, surplus 4x4 boards, whole deer carcasses, anything. Mostly people avoid heavily processed and tough things like leather and rubber because they take a long time to break down, and meat and dairy type things because they can stink, and they attract decomposers that are not welcome nearby (such as rats and raccoons, which eat and poop just as well as worms do). I think if you have a long enough time scale to wait, you can thoroughly bury smelly stuff under odor-absorbing carbon-rich material, and you're willing to deal with anything and everything that turns up to help, your composting system can probably evolve to handle anything once-living that you throw at it. A very large, hot (moist, well-ventilated, nitrogen-rich) pile located far away from high traffic areas (home and any frequently used garden paths), and left at least partially intact to culture and shelter a wide variety of decomposers, seems most likely to succeed. The heat might be too much for some of your local decomposers, but huge piles that aren't uniform tend to have hot spots and cool spots, so residents can take refuge wherever in the pile suits them.

Since we just went through such a hard week for ourselves and our gardens, we all need a break. This week's gardening theme song reflects that and is just for fun....just a happy song to make us smile. Fun, Fun, Fun by The Beach Boys Last week definitely was not fun for our gardens or ourselves, but we get a little bit of a break for a few days before temperatures warm up again. I hope everybody and their gardens made it through the very tough weather week in good condition. Our garden is struggling with the lack of rainfall and very high summer heat. Yesterday really was stunningly hot so early in the day that it was mind-blowing. We were 103 degrees with a heat index of 105 before noon even arrived. Really? What did we do to deserve that? lol. We peaked at a high of 111 and a heat index of 113, and I would love to believe that yesterday will be our worst day of the summer and that there won't be any more like that one. After a week of weather like that, parts of our yard and garden look as if somebody took a blow torch to them. I'm watering really heavily and really often, for me, in an effort to keep the flowers in the garden going for the pollinators because they need them. There's not many native flowers left in bloom for them as most of them are dried up and either going dormant or dying. At least the native sunflowers are hanging in there, so the pollinators have those. There's a couple of patches of frogfruit in bloom in areas where I have made puddles of water for the small wildlife. At this time of the year, every single wildflower counts. The vegetable plants are not amused by the mid-summer heat. I have shade cloth over peppers and a few of the tomatoes and that is helping, but everything else including the fall tomatoes is sitting there roasting in the sun. Even the okra leaves wilted badly yesterday and their soil was plenty moist. The harvesting continues, albeit at a slower pace---okra, lima beans, peppers (hot and sweet), and tomatoes. The first planting of southern peas has finished up and the second planting isn't producing yet but the Lima beans are filling the gap nicely, although they are late. At least they're finally producing, which seems like a miracle of sorts in this heat. Because butterflies love the heat, the garden is overflowing with them now. They are simply everywhere which is great. So are the grasshoppers, which is not so great. It is, however, typical of what happens when the weather gets hot and the fields dry up and the grasshoppers migrate in huge numbers to irrigated areas. I hope everyone is seeing lots of hummingbirds. I think we have had more hummingbirds in the yard and garden this week than ever before. I suppose this is happening for various reasons---the heat and drought conditions may be driving them in out of the native woodlands and grasslands to homes with irrigated yards and gardens. It could be the abundant blooms in the garden for them---I selected so many flowers specifically in mind for them this year. It seems like they are visiting the feeders a lot more---just like they do as they migrate, though it is so early that I am not sure that they've begun migrating yet. Still, their southward migration will begin soon. I also set up a lawn sprinkler in the lawn in the midst of a bunch of trees and run it for them for a few minutes every hour, and they really seem to enjoy flying through the mist of the sprinkler. I'm not sure if they are bathing or playing, but they seem happy no matter what it is that they are doing. Maybe they just need some heat relief too. The garden itself is full of birds searching for insects to eat. I hope they are devouring grasshoppers. Are y'all planning fall gardens? Has anyone got anything going yet other than fall tomatoes? Due to the prolonged lack of rainfall here, I don't have much of a garden plan for fall yet. I'm waiting to see what happens between now and mid-August. If some rain doesn't fall, I don't think I'll plant anything in August. It is just too dry. I feel like it is going to be challenging enough just to keep the current garden plants alive, including the fall tomatoes, from now through mid-August. Historically, our worst summer heat in my county occurs in the first half of August, although I'd be perfectly happy if this year is an exception to the rule. The grass? Our bermuda grass looks pitiful and I don't really care, except that withered, dry grass becomes a fire hazard, so I guess I'll try harder to get it some water this week. It is so dry that its' green color is about gone, and it doesn't spring back after you walk on it....so footprints from the day before are still visible in the grass each morning. Fire activity is picking up down here, not just in our county but in other counties on both sides of the river, and burn bans are starting to pop up---in some cases on the Texas side in the form of emergency burn bans implemented without notice because the weather situation suddenly seems so dire. It really isn't too bad in our county yet, but I feel like it has the potential to turn bad quickly. So, what's new with everybody? How did your plants handle the extreme heat? Are you excited for fall gardening? Just hoping to survive the summer? Beyond caring? Remember to stay hydrated if you're still having the heat. Our cool-down has begun but we aren't really cool yet---the nighttime was cooler. It was nice to wake up to temperatures in the 70s instead of the 80s, but our high still is expected to be 106 today with whatever heat index comes with it. I'm looking forward to Tuesday when we are not expected to hit the triple digits....but they'll be back by Thursday, so the weather reprieve is brief here. The chickens were allowed to leave the mud room and free range around the yard late yesterday evening and spent the night in their coops. The mudroom has been cleaned up, swept and mopped but I haven't moved the furniture back into it. I'll do that today or tomorrow. Covering the entire thing in 4 mm plastic taped down to the floor so they couldn't get under it worked out really well and made clean up a breeze. Have a great day everyone and a wonderful week as well. Dawn