Strange July

This July has been passing strange. First of all, my left arm is still partially paralyzed following shoulder surgery on June 5 and I can’t do diddly-squat with it. Nerves, they tell me, take a long, long time to heal. It seems like eons, but I’ve seen a little improvement and am alternately optimistic and in despair.

Luckily, I have a stand-in. Once a week or so Pam comes to do what I can’t. I stood by her side while she braided the unusually good onion crop, which now hangs at the foot of the basement stairs, ready to be plucked as needed.

Pam also laid out the shallot crop to cure. The shallots are another strange July phenomenon. They are the largest we’ve ever grown, but for the first time ever our tomato plants are sickly and not productive.

This July the weather has been strange, too. It isn’t hot. Today’s temperature is only 83º! Six days ago 1.8” of rain fell! More is predicted.  Can this be July in eastern Kansas?

Here’s another strange thing: overnight, insects stripped every leaf from the sweet autumn clematis I’ve trained for two years to grow on the deck, looking forward to smelling its sweet perfume on cool September nights.

Here’s one of the culprits, a blister beetle.

Finally, it's strange to have a large sunny area in the front yard where the old locust stood.  Seeing Pam standing by the stump made me realize how big the tree was and what a large shadow it cast.

Growing old one comes to expect certain things to follow familiar patterns. This July has proven that assumption wrong, but I do long for normalcy.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer