happiness is... montana air conditioning and eggplants

It's stormy outside.

Really, crashing-loud, wind-pounding stormy.    

It hasn't started raining, but I know it's going to come.  Those clouds were too full not to drop something tonight.  Happiness is a little bit of rain in the summer to cool things off.  

Late tonight, after sweating profusely throughout the day thinking I was way, way too young to be having hot flashes, I realized I'd left several windows open all day long.  

 

Having grown up in the South, I'd known only one way to escape the heat: air conditioning.  When I first moved out west to California, the town I lived in had swamp coolers - another fabulous idea.  Here in Montana, we've got windows.

Okay, okay.  Some people do have air conditioning.  We've got Starbucks and a movie theater and a Target, etc.  Yes, we're civilized.  But I really like the way a lot of people round here keep their homes cool.

You open the windows at night.  You close them in the morning.  It's that simple, and it's pretty effective.  And it uses NO energy.  Cause aren't we all supposed to be cutting back?  (Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting anyone try this in Alabama.  Or any other humid state.  Just here.  Where it actually works.)

Normally, it works well, but if you forget to close them in the morning, it's a big bummer.  The heat builds up like a sauna and you end up changing shirts on the hour and thinking you're afflicted with some condition that will never go away and leave you cool and dry.  Because every other morning you remember to close all the windows.  Not just some.

End of story.  I'll get on with the precious eggplants because I've mused on my perspiration for much too long. 

Yes, I say "precious" although "petite" might be a better word.

 

 Or "puny."  

Or "producing-no-fruit."

 

 

But I'm going to use "precious" because these babies came from seed, survived the aphids, and until the summer's over, they give me hope that I'll have lots of eggplant.

I'm good with denial.  Happiness is thinking my eggplants will be bountiful.

If that hope starts to slip, I can slide on over to the Handyman's raised beds.  Happiness is also having a Handyman.

  

Absolute sun all day, fresh eko-compost, and a little bit of water and, "Voila!" (I give him no credit.  Just because he's an ecologist does not mean he can make everything grow.  Or maybe it does, but I don't want him to get the "big-head," as my momma would say.)

They're gorgeous. 

I'd steal them if I didn't already know that he doesn't like eggplants and I'll get them anyway.  [insert evil laugh here].