HHH

That is, HAZY, HOT, and HUMID! The first of June left us wrung out. Suddenly the temperature in the shade was 90 and the humidity everywhere was close to 100%. The air was nearly white with it. The goats lay sprawled out in the shade, and we hid in the house with the windows closed, hoping to keep the heat out.

Meanwhile, the garden grew.

A few days later the temperatures went down, but the humidity stayed. Even when it was 75, it was too hot to work and we liquified as soon as we lifted a finger.

But since the weeds had grown just as the veggies had, we needed to weed. 

I took my turn in 15-minute spurts. During the day the sun beat down and I drained cup after cup of water. In the evening, when it was cooler, the mosquitos came out and ignored every repellant we dared use. And the weeds kept growing and we kept plucking away at them. 

So did the veggies grow. The cherry tomatoes were showing more color and we were eager for them to get to a truly ripe state. Tiny peppers appeared, and the eggplant flowers added an elegant color to their corner of the first garden. And tiny beans were emerging from below the blossoms that had borne them. 

The peas were getting exasperated with the heat, though: they stopped producing and the vines turned to straw. We gave up and fed the vines to the goats, who seemed to think of them as dessert. 

Gradually the number of hazy, hot, humid days increased, and the respites between them disappeared. I kept the radio on in the faint hope that the forecast might change. We quietly played games in the house (though VJ never missed a chance to tend his glads out in the full sun). With no A/C, the coolest place to read or nap was the floor. We spread out so as not to suffer from each other's added heat and dozed in a drowsy stupor so the hours till we could enjoy the cool of the evening would pass more quickly. 

But some nights it never cooled off. Then we lay spread-eagled on our beds and sweated the hours away.

And July and August were yet to come.