Like most of the west, we are in a heat wave, and a drought, which made me thankful we had a bit of rain last night so I didn’t have to break out the watering can or drag the hose around this morning. It takes a lot of water to keep up an acre, most of which is now planted, and what’s not planted is full of critters that are quite thirsty every day.

We do have in ground sprinklers for the lawn and flower beds and the hubby has set up a few permanent above-ground sprinklers hooked up to various hoses and valves. So I don’t have to work too hard to water most of the veggie gardens but some things still need my manual labor, which I don’t mind, as long as I can get out there before the thermometer goes up and before the murderous wasps come out to kill me!

Like most people with mastocytosis, I’m allergic to both them and the heat, so it can be a bit of a challenge when the temperatures soar.

And boy have they been soaring. The sun and water combo is paying off, though. The hostas and daylilies look incredible.

The apples are coming along and the tomatoes are starting to ripen.

The baby butter crunch lettuce I tucked in here and there is adorable.

The baby buffs and ducklings seem to not mind as long as they can get in some shade.

The lavender is drought tolerant once it gets big enough, but for now it needs daily watering while it gets established.

The fast growing willows are also pretty drought tolerant but since they’re still young they also need a lot of water.

To help keep the moisture in, we’ve been adding grass clippings on top of the plastic. It definitely helps because we found compared to the ones without the clippings, we aren’t having to water them as much.

Now that we have our little homestead pretty well established we are looking into collecting rain water to help offset our watering needs. We’re on a community well here and we pay quite a bit per month for our water, but it’s totally worth it to keep everything and everyone happy.

We invested in some misters for the dog kennels, so the pups are happy. They have a pool for swimming in, and lots of shady spots outside, too.

Of course they’d rather be in the house with me where the AC is running.

I can’t say I blame them!

I did find a recipe to use on the wasps which I’ll be trying this afternoon and hopefully within a few weeks there won’t be any more of them threatening to kill me out there. It’s supposed to work really well and kill them ALL in a few mile radius while leaving the bees alone, so we’ll see. It sounds too good to be true, but it’s totally worth a try.

One less thing to send me to the ER is always welcome. 🙂