Take More Time To Watch The Gardeners

Ah, Summer in the Heartland! We're east of the 100^th Meridian, so we draw moisture up out of the Gulf to mix with drier air from Canada, and that brings thunderstorms. We're having sweltering humid days, and we're having the warm nights that help the corn grow tall. In the mornings the dew soaks everything. That dew wets the corn, allowing water to trickle down the stem to soak the ground around the roots, even on dry days. Interesting! It's an old fashioned summer. It's not as hot as I ever saw it, nor is there more rain, nor is it unusually cool, nor is it dry. It's the climate and the weather we've been having here since the end of the last ice age. It's the weather I remember growing up. In those days, of course, we didn't have air conditioning any place we lived. Shade trees and fans did the trick. Sometimes when it was really hot the fans weren't quite enough, so we might have an uncomfortable night. Somehow we survived. I remember about 1960 our family made a trip to see family in Kentucky. On the way back we stayed at the Seven Gables Motel in Burnside. There was no AC, but there were fans and there was ice water. It was hot. I still recall the smell of the Cashmere Bouquet soap. In spite of the heat we survived that night, too.