A Dash into the Heat

I grew up in central Mississippi in that good, old-fashioned Deep South heat. We had an older home without central air conditioning; my dad turned on one window unit on Sunday afternoons for a few hours. That was it, for cooling. And I don't think we even had ceiling fans, back in the day. How did we survive!?

We didn't have this:

I'm so thankful for this little pool.
Do you want to see a stunning Rugosa rose bush? I'm amazed at its rose hips this year. They truly look like the fruit that they are.

Some of these are much larger than cherry tomatoes.

The bees are fine. The two hives on the ends are thriving; each afternoon and evening, masses of bees hang out of the entrances, cooling off b/c the hives are so full and warm inside. The second hive from the right is the weakest hive. We don't know, but we speculate that it has a weak queen, who does not lay as many eggs as she might. Adam may put a new queen in there later.

Our tomatoes are just starting to ripen, but we have some blossom-end rot :( Very sad. This is a 'mortgage lifter' variety. See the big brown spot, on the bottom? It's from calcium deficiency, evidently.

The apples are bigger than they've ever been. So pretty.

And some are turning red,

My loofah plants are going crazy. I know absolutely nothing about loofah, so I'm examining all parts of these endless vines, wondering where the fruit will appear. I know it will be wherever the blooms are first, and there are no blooms yet. My neighbor may need to harvest these for me. Isn't this an interesting assembly? Loofah blossoms in the making?

Our lettuce bolted, and bloomed. Lovely yellow blossoms, yes? We are not diligent gardeners, as you see. We'd rather wait until the fall, and dig everything under and clean it up. It's just too hot out there, now!