Looking Forward To Cooler Weather
Greetings from the island everyone. I hope this week finds all of you doing well, and you are hanging in there as this south Texas Summer heat slowly transitions to cooler pre-Fall temperatures.
As I sit out on the porch the Friday prior to the article printing, there is actually a nice cool northerly breeze and a hint of the Fall weather forthcoming. Of course two days from now, the mornings will probably be back in the 90’s with sweat drenching humidity. . but hey, I’ll take the coolness when I can get it.
With very much needed rain on the island, the radar shows a tiny disturbance in the Gulf off the coast of Louisiana, slowly drifting SW towards our area. I sure hope it continues that path and brings the island at least a few inches of heavenly rain, I certainly need it, and I know everyone else does as well. In my nearly 17 years living out here, I cannot recall a drier island summer than the one we are experiencing now.
My Spring and early Summer garden has been finished for a few weeks now. With the oppressive heat and drastic lack of rain, not to mention the abundance of tomato hornworms this year (I HATE those things!), it was a poor island gardening year. But that’s simply how it goes sometimes, bumper crops one year and poor results the next. I don’t usually have a Fall garden, since it’s just too dang hot and the threat of storm salt water flooding the yard and raised beds, so for the next few weeks I’ll just clean out and prep the beds for next Spring planting. Gonna dedicate a portion of my front yard next Spring to new raised beds for watermelons, keeping them inside my fenced yard where raccoons and coyotes can’t get to them like they used to do when the beds were next door and not protected.
A little more sea grass than usual has been washing ashore on the beach this year. I can recall years ago that every April-July there would be literally tons of sargassum grass washing in from the Gulf, I’m talking about areas that had it 2-3’ deep on the beach. But for the last 6-8 years there has been very little for some reason. The seagulls, pelicans and various little sea birds spend hours feeding off tiny shrimp, crabs and other tiny sea life that were entangled in the thick sargassum. And the sea grass washing in would also signal the beginning of sea beans (seeds), starting to wash ashore from South and Central America, the Caribbean and beyond. It’s an adventure beach combing and collecting the different types of sea beans.
Well that’s it from the island for now. Everyone take care and have a great day.
