Summer Days Have Arrived

Greetings from the island everyone. Hope all of you are doing well and were able to spend some time with your dad on Fathers Day. The siblings and I took a road trip to Brazoria and enjoyed some quality time with our dad, Henry. And after seeing his garden, I’ve got a long way to go to achieve that level of green thumbness.

I’ll tell you what, when those northers finally stopped blowing, it didn’t take long for the South Texas heat to move in with a vengeance. The first day of summer is officially today, but Mother Nature must have misplaced her calendar, because the sweat factor is already in effect.

Of course living in this part of the country, we should already be well aware that the summer heat starts early, it’s gonna be sweltering and it’s gonna last a long time. It only seems like it gets hotter every year, but I think we simply forget from one year to the next. Anyway, we all choose to live here because we love this area and the coastal lifestyle, and for us the positives outweigh the negatives. So be it.

Well, I haven’t found a sea turtle nest, but on the morning of May 28 I did locate turtle tracks coming ashore on the beach. I lost the tracks in the loose sand approaching the dunes, and was unable to locate a nesting site, but from July 13-19 I’ll keep watch on that area for any newly hatched baby turtles.

I came across a pretty neat find on the beach a few weeks ago. A pair of round yellow plastic buoys, chained together, washed ashore. After hauling them back to the house, and removing the stainless bolts that secured the two halves on each one, inside of them were clear deep sea glass spheres, half inch thick, 54 inches in diameter and weighing 39 pounds each. A tag on each one identified them with a serial number and that they were tested to a depth of 6700 meters, that’s a few hundred feet shy of four miles! I’m not certain what purpose they would serve, but I cleaned up the yellow buoys that they were encased in and have them displayed on the front deck area. Once again, you just never know what might wash ashore out here.

The tomato plants have done pretty well out here this year. All of the cherry type ones are hanging in large clusters, and I had to top-off the plants at six feet tall, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to reach the top of them. My large variety tomatoes have not done nearly as well, with most of them developing blossom end rot, with the bottom portion turning black and ruining the tomato. So my goal of growing a three pounder will have to wait.

Well, that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a great day.