Island Summer Heat Has Arrived

Greetings from the island everyone. I hope that all of you are doing well and adjusting to this ridiculous sultry heat that we have been having lately. As I sit out on my island porch having my Maxwell House coffee at 6:50 a.m. ( one week prior to you reading this ), the “feel like” temperature is 91 degrees! Are you kidding me?? And that number is gonna rise to around 110 degrees later this afternoon. It just makes me wanna cuss! Any outside work related projects are only done during the early morning and late evening hours due to these times of extreme high humidity heat.

I gotta admit, with the progression of age, these south Texas summers sure are beginning to make me miss the comforts of air conditioning. Luckily for me, there is usually at least a light breeze coming in off the Gulf, and that, along with staying in the shade and drinking plenty of sweet iced tea, makes the summer heat bearable. During my mainland supply runs, I bring back several bags of ice and pack them in a 75 quart Yeti cooler that I keep on the porch, in the shade and covered with a large towel. This ice, along with some in my small propane fridge freezer, provides me with cold drinks for much needed hydration until my next trip across the bay.

I hope that everyone had a great 4th of July and enjoyed the 50th annual fireworks show in POC. I sat out on my upstairs deck and watched the show from the island, not being able to hear the booms from the displays, but could easily see them from my five miles away. And if you didn’t make the POC show, I know that Bubba’s Seadrift had a wonderful fireworks display out at Swan Point, as he does every year. Thank you Bubba for your continued great generosity!

With my goal of getting a small tractor out on the island, I’ve been working on putting a sturdy wooden floor in one of my 12’x26’ garages, this one being built specifically to house a tractor. Probably 95% of the flooring project consists of treated 2×6 boards, 12’ long each. . . about 84 of these boards total, and a grand total of about 2,000 – 3” treated deck screws. So I’ve been hauling out 10-12 boards at a time on my supply runs until I can get it finished. I’m also painting the double doors on each of the connected three garages red, white and blue, to give it all a nice island patriotic look. There’s always a project or something to do out here.

Well, my raised bed and tub gardens have officially played out. These prolonged days of summer heat spell the end to late Spring and early Summer vegetable gardening, especially the tomatoes. When temps remain consistently in the high 80’s and low 90’s, the tomato blossoms simply will not set but instead fall off. When it cools down some, I’ll start getting all my planting areas ready for early Spring planting next year, adding a large assortment of organic material to the existing soil. I always look forward to the next tomato crop.

For those that have asked, Mom is doing as well as can be expected in the nursing home. Still being on lock-down, we are only able to visit her through a large window, communicating by speaker phone. Prayers that this epidemic will end soon so that we can at least physically be with Mom. We love you Mom.

Well, that’s it from the island for now. Everyone please stay cool, have a great day and be careful out in this dreadful heat.