Signs of Early Summer

So, there's a bit of a heat wave going on here. Very strange to think that last week, I was wearing long pants and sweaters, and now, I'm trying to get away with as few clothes as possible. I suspect the cats wish they could unzip themselves from their black cat suits and run around pink and naked for a little while. They're both mostly lolling around on the floor near the fans. Chaya hasn't even woken me up the past two nights, I suspect because it's slightly cooler downstairs.

The garden is simultaneously lush and parched, if that's possible. Things are growing like gangbusters, but I'm worried about this blast of heat. I'm wondering if it means the ruin of pea season, for one thing.

Here's what a few things look like.

My lovely peony at home went from being on the cusp of opening to looking a bit blowsy and over-ripe. The color is still pretty, but it's not the best display. I'm hoping as it cools off a bit that the last buds will open more slowly.

The white peony at the community garden is a bit more decorous.

Also at the community garden, the annual corn poppy display has begun. It's a good thing I have both sides of my four-plot. Up until last year, the poppies mainly stayed on the side I had first, where I first planted the seeds, many years ago. But now they've migrated, and they're such a nice show every year, that I can't bear to pull any (or many, at least) out, even when they seed themselves in inconvenient places. The problem is that, when they die, there are big gaping holes. I'm attempting to combat that on this side of the garden by planting a bunch of annuals in the spaces between them, so something, at least, will be coming up when the poppies die down.










On the left is the first red(dish) strawberry to have been discovered by the birds, and on the right, are the first red(dish) strawberries that are (so far) intact. I stumbled upon them when I bent down to pull out a weed (as often happens), and now I'm going to keep my eye out for them and try to get them before the birds do. There are lots of green strawberries, which is encouraging, though I think it will be at least another week before I have more than a few to put on my breakfast cereal.

This is one of the pleasures of being a haphazard gardener. I bought this last year and didn't plant it right away. By the time I got it into the ground, it wasn't doing very well. But I made sure to give it lots of compost, and then I basically left it alone. This year, it seems to have settled in quite nicely. I'm not even positive what it is, but I'm assuming some kind of salvia. It's my first fully blooming plant at home--well, not counting the daisies and the irises and the peony. (Okay, and some other stuff. But in that section of the garden, it's the only thing blooming.)
I think poor Kalu wishes he felt as fresh as the flowers look. It was hard to get a picture of him in that pose--he gets excited when he sees me on the other side of the window and starts pacing and seems to want me to pet his stomach through the screen. Yesterday, this meant that as he attempted to roll onto his back on the narrow window sill, he fell off. (He's a bit of a klutz that way.)

Tomorrow, the high is supposed to be 90, and usually, that wouldn't be a good thing, but I'm hoping it's a sign the heatwave is breaking. After the combination of living in India (for quite awhile without AC) and living in an attic apartment for 7 years, I seem to have more tolerance for the heat than I used to, but I still don't like it. I'm hoping for some cooler days for us all--plants, animals and people alike.