Community Update

                  MY LOSING BATTLE

            These “Dog
Days of Summer” are much worse than I can ever remember and I’m losing the
battle in my garden, actually; I think I’ve lost the war.  The weeds are winning!  Unless I can work in the yard before 7:00 AM
to tackle the mess out there, the heat is just too much.  Between the heat and the humidity this
weather is a killer.

            By the way,
did you ever wonder where that expression came from . . . dog days of
summer?  Well, leave it to the ancient
Romans.  They thought Sirius, you know
that really bright star in the night sky, was so HOT, that was the cause for
hot and sultry weather that begins in July and runs right through early
September.  Sirius means burning or glowing
and we certainly have been burning this summer. 
The Romans named this star Canis Major, which means Big Dog – hence our
dog days of summer.  Now that you have
that important piece of information, you can sleep peacefully.

            In a way, I
hate to see August arrive because that means summer is winding down and since
time flies by so fast, before you can say, “Jack Robinson”, we’ll be shoveling
snow.  What a horrible thought.  And we’ll be wishing for summer.  There’s no pleasing us or at least me, I
guess.

            Getting back
to my losing battle with the weeds; if we have many of these hot, dry summers
such as this one, I may have to rethink my landscaping entirely.  Perhaps I should consider the type of
vegetation and ground cover states like Florida or Arizona use, which requires
little care.  On second thought, the only
things in their yards that could survive our New England winters would be the
ground cover – rocks.  The real solution
to all my gardening problems would be to simply hot top my entire yard.