It puts our tiny wildfire in Fanjeaux into perspective. A few weeks ago some stubble fields just under the village caught fire, yet the amount of firefighters who came to the scene was huge - there were 12 fire trucks mobilised and even a helicopter dumping water on it. I suspect the proximity to the village was a factor. Here's a photo put out by our Mairie (town hall) afterwards. The photo was probably taken from the village looking down, so you can see how close it was.
We can see when passing the area that the grass verge is burnt beside the road meaning some idiot probably chucked a cigarette out of their window. You would think people might have some common sense in summer, especially when the countryside is parched, but no. Most of these wildfires start due to human idiocy, either on purpose or because some people just don't stop to think about the consequences of their actions.
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Poor Harry was at the vet on Friday having his teeth descaled and a couple of extractions. The cats had their annual jabs recently and the vet said they would both need a descale. She also recommended having a full X-ray set so that they could see the state of their teeth in full - as they are both 13 now it is worth paying the extra for it. Harry has a full report with a diagram of his teeth and a numbering of 1-3 on the state of each tooth and its mobility, gum disease etc. I was surprised to see that he had three missing teeth before the extractions! The ones that had to come out were his canines on the same side - when we were at the vet I could see how inflamed his gum was around his upper canine and that it was causing him pain when the vet tapped it. As he is fat and happy and loves his food, I can't see several fewer teeth causing him much of a problem. Anyway, he was SO pleased to be home and especially as he is getting some soft food as well as some biscuits which makes a nice change for him. His after surgery tablets can be crushed and mixed with the soft food, so that saves a battle to get a pill down his throat several times a day!
Bertie's turn next, though his are not quite so bad. He's been on dental health biscuits for a few years as his teeth were starting to look bad some years back, yet these special biscuits did the trick for two years and cleaned the plaque off the tops of his teeth which was quite amazing, but there's obviously a limit to their usefulness and the plaque was back.
Brushing their teeth is of course out of the question! I can barely even catch Bertie now as he's become so anxious and nervy and he keeps scratching his collar off after about two weeks. We can only put one on again when we are at the vets, so it's fairly pointless really. K keeps saying, "Why can't we have normal cats?" but actually, our previous cat Smokey was fat and always hungry and hanging around the kitchen annoyingly too. All cats have their foibles.
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As for this hot dry weather, I think we've had three official heatwaves but it seems to just go on and on. We had a few days with temps in the high 20s which was very nice, even one day which at 24 and breezy felt quite chilly! I thank goodness for the airconditioning, otherwise it would be just like the nightmare summer of 2003 which was horrendous.
Whilst a lot of the ornamental plants are unhappy, the courgette and tomatoes are happy as larry! They are both producing abundantly. The lettuce bolted before we even got back from holiday and whilst we've been eating some of the endive mixed in with bought lettuce, that's gone really tough and past it now. Chicories are best when they are blanched though (not cooked blanched, but devoid of light to make the leaves lighter in colour and less bitter).
I sowed more lettuce but only five bothered to germinate and they slowly succumbed to something, I suspect the millions of snails we have here. I've put pellets down now (they are of course wildlife friendly ones, except to snail and slug wildlife). I'm still waiting for my next sowing of lettuce to appear but I don't think they want to! I have a few coriander coming up but very slowly and I've sown more dill which is just emerging. My first sowing of coriander has gone to seed which is what I wanted as I want to collect the seed, and I've saved some dill seeds too. I also sowed more spring onions but not one bothered to come up. I think it's just too hot.
Most of my gardening this summer just involves watering in the evening!
The three tomatoes are wild!
The two self seeded tomatoes are not doing well, this one has very yellowy leaves and most of the fruit did not set. The other one has three tomatoes forming so far, but they are both very small compared to the bought tomato plants. The chillies are not doing much either. We had two Padron Peppers and that is all!
Brown coriander, bolted endives and lettuce and dill coming to the end of its life. It's a shame I don't have chickens any more as they would have loved the greens!
This plant is absolutely loaded!
My Smoke Bush is not happy, although it started getting brown leaves before we went on holiday, when there was a lot of sun which I think scorched the leaves, even though it was under 30C at the time. Now I know there are some plants with leaves this colour which can't take too much sunlight as it scorches them, but I didn't think Smoke Bushes would be affected. After all, I had one this colour in Brittany. But every time it gets new leaves they just end up brown and crispy like you can see. Obviously it is being watered properly. Oh well, at least it is growing, unlike the new Wisteria which has had a few new leaves but that is all.
The Verbena bonariensis which self seeded is very happy in here though! I did dig some up and pot on as I want to plant it out in various places in my beds, but it is just too hot at the moment and the soil will probably be too hard to dig a hole in. They are rather leggy and really need repotting (again!) but they will just have to wait until the autumn to be planted out.
My new Kaffir Lime is a happy bunny and has had a lot of new growth, but it seems to be concentrating on that rather than flowering, maybe that's a good thing for this year. Perhaps I should repot it. I had better check although it doesn't have roots coming out of the bottom of the pot. No flowers on the lemon either although that has had some more new growth too.
About half of the geraniums are really unhappy with the heat and I have had to bring some into a shadier place in the hope that they can recover. On the plus side, I have not seen any of those pesky Geranium butterflies yet this year, that lay their eggs in the stems! There are not many butterflies about at all any more.
Some things are a nice surprise, amongst the weeds from the bird seed:
It's all very well having lots of sun and warm weather, but when it is too hot to do anything much outside or go out for walks and enjoy the countryside, it's a real shame. I shall just have to stay indoors and eat courgette cake! This recipe is amazing - the cake is flavoured with cardamom and cinnamon and has brown sugar so it’s a nice colour. I just made a regular icing with lemon juice though.
