Good morning!! Well here I am in happy anticipation of Mars tonight (I
didn't stay awake long enough to see it last night as it was rising in the
southeast). Today promises to be still clear enough to catch it but as I
went outside this morning (a split day off today) to water some of the
parched containers and see if Sugar had been digging in my flowerbeds (she
had.......arggghhhh, the SAME one by the nook behind the Ruby Slippers
lobelia I think the pulmonaria is totally lost now. I've replaced the soil
about six times and I don't think there are any spring bulbs remaining in
the soil. THIS time she had not only relocated over 3/4ths of the soil out
of the bed but had uncovered the astilbe I'd planted two months ago.....this
is getting outa hand, time to look for the metal piece to lay down on top of
the soil in hopes this stops her next time, I'm getting tired of discovering
she's redug this one area).

Once I got some spit watering done, put the soil back into the bed cursing
and kvetching about the dawg the whole time.......I went back over to the
west yard and was looking up at the towering branches of my fig bed. I can't
wait until they start ripening I was thinking when I spotted an unmistakable
sight......plump, slightly tan and heavy, nestled just at the base of a huge
leaf. It can't be....ohhhh but it IS!!! So I stood underneath the branches
and traced every branch and every fig until I located six of the lucious,
fat and ripe beauties. Only six, but previews of things yet to come as the
tree is loaded this year.

Picking the first one proved that it had ripened sooner than I realized. It
was lost. I was disappointed as I flung it into the pasture westward,but
kept looking for more and spotted five others ready for picking. Careful so
as not to tear the flesh, I removed them, searched the tree for more sweet
gifts but was grateful for these six I stopped when I realized the rest
weren't close. These were the first previews of wonderful things to come in
September.

The first one was pure honey. Slightly cooled by the night, despite that it
only dropped in temperature to 77o last night, the cooler evening, added
with the fog that son said was present when HE went outside to look at Mars
rising up this morning was enough to chill the deep pink flesh in the
center. I saved the other five to share with Squire and oldest son, and once
they took their's, I was allowed to have Squire's, he insisted Ammaretto
coffee doesn't go well with fresh figs, son on the other hand got a large
one upon rising and was surprised at the sweet flavor. He hasn't had a fresh
fig in quite a few years. The rest were allocated to me, and I still have
one waiting for me to slowly eat it, savoring it since it's the last one for
awhile until the rest start to ripen as these hot days march on.

Outside the day is warming up and threatening to be another blisterer,
cicada's are strumming their songs in the trees and the fairies are tucked
under cool leaves and rocks to ward off the impending heat.

I have four new baskets of mums waiting to be planted that I fell in love
with yesterday that came the night before at work, and yesterday morning we
got asters in and three replacement pots stuck to my hands that I'd gotten
last year and they dissolved on me. (you have to plant these things into the
ground instead of tucking them in the side area near the timber and pouring
soil around them to fill in the space. they like to be snug in the
ground....I'll never learn). The pots of mums resemble my most loved flower.
The composites. I love all daisy flowers and these mums that came day before
look like pyrethrum's, burgandy with yellow eye, peach, yellow and creme
with spidery petals, deep pink with yellow eye that looks like a darker
Clara Curtis, and an orange one with yellow, peach and cream with spidery
petals radiating outward instead of the cushion shapes all the rest of them
have.

The asters were the same ones I got last year. An almost blue one, a deep
pink one and one called Jenny that is a hot pinkish red and double. And I
noticed that my Frakartii asters are as tall as they can get where I park
the car, and are starting to plump up their buds at the tops, tucked between
them on my way back inside with the figs I saw signs of a surviving
pysostegia, pink obedient plant I'd plunked into the middle of the asters
sometime but had forgotten about, and I left two Soladago's and ripped out
all the rest so I'd have a spike of golden yellow to open up when the fields
set fire with their own show of them.

Walking down the driveway when I was watering I spotted a nice surprise. I
thought I'd lost the purillo or perennial petunia and I saw one lone soft
powdery lavendar blossom rising up from the tangle of the sidewalk bed on
the west side. Along with Bermuda grasses trying to take over. My work is
cut out for me.........

Back in the house I sit at the desk, slowly savoring the sweetness of the
fig and see the hummer is taking advantage of the cooler morning and
checking out every blossom in my garden. It's time to make up some sugar
water for him and his wife and kids.

thanks for allowing me to share this moment with you, I hope you're all safe
and not overheated and hopefully some rains will drench the Pacific
Northwest and aid in the fire's extinguishing up there.

madgardener up on the ridge, back in fairy holler, overlooking a muggy and
hot looking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36