This post is over a week late....

Only Eight O'clock AM and I'm dripping beads of summer effort when it's not yet a calendar summer day.  Tell that to our cat stretched out pancake formation on the concrete of the car port or the chicken laying in a heap in the screened porch. Tell that my hair slicked back like the Fonz-oh to be cool on any front!

  Chickens do have concrete thoughts!

The sun is not turned up to "full" quite yet.  The morning haze draping the sleepy drooping earth protects us for just moments more, and then whammo! the whole farm is braced-still under the interrogation of heated beams.

The plants gather energy reserves and hum "ohm".  I repeat my own mantra from Psalm 139, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made."  The sweat drips and my thighs drive the wheel hoe through the gathering  of weeds between beans, between corn, between tomatoes.  "God doesn't make weaklings.  It's not hot.  It's not hot."  This is the chant until I cease red-faced, heart beating alarmingly fast.

Thank God for pools of water snuffing out the fire, a seeming sizzle as muscles release in the wet.  Me, a spaghetti noodle loose and yielding.

Only 800 am.

"To do" lists remind me that the day is only getting hotter.  "Quick dry" shorts and tank top drip back to the garden, not bothering with a towel.  Japanese beetles munch leaves of fruit trees tearing holes into the efforts of Spring.

Grape Leaf "After" being mobbed.  The white spots are kaolin clay.

Grape Leaf "Before"

"Stop!"  I want to yell to them.
 "Eat the weeds!  Eat thistles! Oh please, eat thistles!  
Eat the grasses that have bent over the electric fence and strangled the charge.  
Eat the green that makes this earth so much work!  
I'm not your enemy, stop being mine!  
There is no murder by chemistry here.  I study hard the laws that Nature mandates and follow the rules- well, the ones that I understand.  
Go eat somewhere else!"

But I know the beetles and thistles can't hear my voice over the drumming thumps of DNA firing cannons of "SURVIVE." So I spray kaolin clay on the leaves mixed with compost tea- a deterrent for the bugs and a palliative for the leaves.  A concoction where every little bug step on every little leaf is a road sign saying "EAT SOMEWHERE ELSE!"  

"Survive" will lead them somewhere else, and quickly is the hope.

"It's not hot.  It's not hot."  The rooster crows half heartedly.  I call back "you are fearfully and wonderfully made!"  A collection of 5 Japanese beetles bristle frantically in a closed palm.  Fingers spread palm open and bronze beetles crawl fast towards edges but my sweet rooster friend is too fast.  They are crunched, crispy protein nuggets.

He didn't always like the beetles.  At first he would peck a bit, flip the insect over, and walk away as if repulsed.  Over time all of the poultry have figured it out.  Like children, introduced to a food enough times, they get the hint, develop a taste.  The chickens have learned to eat what I hand to them.  Yell "treat!" and here they come running, wobbling, flapping, and cackling with gusto!

How can I entice the beetles to eat other things with more than just the "keep out" sign, but a "welcome to the buffet" attempt.  How do I yell "treat!" to a beetle?  

A friend of mine in the entomology department at college studied what scents were released by corn plants that called insects to dine.  Perhaps instead of trapping the beetles, I could spritz a little eau de grape vine on the thistles.  The theory is that the Japanese beetles would cluster.  What a workforce!  Thousands of munchers at my disposal (cue the maniacal laugh).  This just might work.  A couple of fruit leaves, a blender, a spray bottle, it's worth a shot.  

For now, the sprayer coats the trees and grapes with a white slurry of thistle compost tea (extra smelly) and kaolin clay.  Any dog or chicken or farmer standing near will also be polka-dotted. 

Clay mask anyone?

I've always been a little pasty

Wish this were scratch and sniff! EEWWW!
Thistle make every little thing all right!

Today the orchard is covered so to speak.  Tomorrow is another "not hot" day as is the remainder of Spring into Summer.  Five am is looking better every day.  

Ahhh!  Summertime!!!