heat wave

End of summer, beginning of fall, leaves starting to change colors- and we're suddenly getting a hundred and one temps at the height of the day. I take a walk after dark because it's so hot. My yard is parched- the grass yellow and brown, the younger hydrangeas severely wilted, the little maple hybrid on the sideyard leaves turning crispy. I water what I'm able to, with fishwater from the tank cleaning, and dishwater from the kitchen. Still prefer to recycle that, rather than turn on the hose. Red-hot poker is getting priority treatment- I deadheaded and it sprouted a new flower stalk!- plus all the potted plants. Most of the rest is just left to survive if it can. 

Some things are doing great in the heat- sedums in the front yard, celosia around the mailbox, canna lilies (still no flowers though) and the cardinal climber has begun to bloom all over the place- 

so I get glimpses of the hummingbird more often, and have to go out trim off the reaching vine tendrils every other day, or it will take over. 

And here my sad (empty) garden has given me a nice surprise: that vine was a butternut squash!

I wasn't absolutely sure until I cut it open: yes.

Roasted it with some brussels sprouts for dinner- and it tasted good. There's two, I'm saving the other for a later day. Still baffled how it grew in my garden- my best guess is still that a squirrel put the seed there. I sure didn't plant it. Rabbit or deer has eaten all the leaves off by now- and even chomped on my 'kiwi fern' coleus nearby! but it doesn't matter, I got my squash.

They (deer) had also mostly chomped the flower buds off my turtlehead and the gladiolas on the larger sideyard- I never saw them eat glads buds until this year. But now I do have some turtlehead blooming, from further back in the patch against the fence, on one side of the yard. Where I guess the deer don't bother to reach. So there's that. 

I might get a picture, but it's too hot to bother going outside again now.