Triple digit temperatures are expected for today and the next two days. Voluntary conservation of energy use is asked from 5 to 10 in the evening.
I tend to chores early in the morning, rising heat preventing work after 9:00. Animals are in search of water wherever they can find it. Every morning I find the irrigation line at the east end of the Back Border Garden neatly taken off at the connector. I deployed cat litter and and deer and rabbit repellent. Deer and rabbit repellent also on Myrtle of the Far East and all three roses. Deer seem also to have found one of the ceanothuses in the Front Slope Garden.
Ants have taken over the kitchen. Just leave a knife a residue of a cheese slice on the counter and you will attract a crowd in minutes.
I cut off the spent bloom stalks on the sweet pea at the gazebo, and pruned back the dead growth. MJ spoke with a homeowner and gardener on the Skye Walk in San Diego who was trying to train a sweet pea up a trellis. The common wisdom was that the sweet pea favors horizontal and not vertical growth. My solution was to load the end vines onto the top of the gazebo hoping to encourage new horizontal growth across the roof. The sweet pea received supplemental water from the rain barrel after its pruning and shaping.
A Year at the Snake 