Today’s another hot day here in Northern California. It won’t be as hot as earlier this week, the weatherman claims, but it’s already 98 degrees (F). So do I believe him? We’ll see.

But I did get out early enough to take a few Thursday doors snaps – the doors to this utility box are on the other side.

But these are the doors for this utility box. Check out other doors at Dan Antion’s place!

Meanwhile I’ve been going through a huge pile of home improvement books that I found stuffed in a cabinet we rarely use. Most of them were published by Reader’s Digest, Sunset Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens and Time/Life books back in their heydays (fifty years ago). They cover just about anything you’d need to know to build and maintain a house (and garden.) Of course, changing light bulbs these days is a struggle for us. So they won’t be going back in the cabinet. I’m not sure anyone will want a book on solar heating and cooling that was published in 1978. But I doubt the basics of electricity and plumbing have changed that much.

I did find an interesting article on installing a deer proof fence.

It turns out that deer shy away from baffles (see lower left of image). So if you don’t want deer in your yard, just build a maze! There’s another interesting idea for gopher proofing a yard. Let me know if you’d like me to post it.

The heat has done in Penito. Alas.

Whelp, it looks like old Charlie will finally get to be the king. Sigh, for the next several days, I’m sure it’s all we’ll hear about.

Soon Penito will be finished blossoming and who knows what will happen next.

At least the bees have been showing him some love.

We’re heading into a potentially deadly heat wave which always causes our power company, the notorious PG&E, to fly into conniptions. Turn off unnecessary lights! Set your AC to 78 degrees! Don’t run major appliances between 4 and 8 at night. The grid is straining, the grid is straining. Oh my!

So we may lose power at any time. Thankfully I have plenty of books and a basement which is generally twenty degrees cooler than the upstairs. Hope you are all managing to stay cool during these hopefully final hot days of summer.

It continues to be toasty here with no sign of rain on the horizon. In such weather I tend to stay indoors until the sun starts to set which is thankfully earlier and earlier. But it’s not easy to get pictures of Penito and child in the shadows of the giant pine trees that line our property and block the setting sun.

This shot was taken at about 2:30 this afternoon. As you can see, lots more blossoms! I tried to capture the bee who was checking things out but he spotted me and took offense. Luckily I managed to escape his ire.

Mother Penito is now up to my eyebrows.

It’s hard to get a good shot in the blazing sun but, as the blossoms cascade up the stalk, the ones left behind close. They still cling to the mother but they will not reopen. Once the blossoms reach the tip, all of them will close. The bereft stalk will struggle to stay erect, and then, lay down to rest for at least a year.

After a moderate start (temperature-wise), August has started to heat up. I shouldn’t complain as the temps will only get into the lower 90s and it’s not supposed to last long but I don’t do well in the heat. However, my strange plant seems to love it.

The mother plant is now up to my shoulder – approximately five feet tall.

Over the weekend they started to bend over as if getting ready to strike.

And then this morning:

The first blossoms.

Update at 4:30: Well, it got to almost 100 miserable degrees here and isn’t cooling down any time soon. Supposedly tomorrow a bit of a cool down but we’ll see!

Not much to say as August slips away. So I’ll just share a few pics of Penito and baby

What a week this has been. There’s so much craziness going on in the world that I’m happy to have a garden to escape to, even if the drought has killed so many of my plants. Luckily, Penito and child seem to thrive in this climate.

Granted, this odd plant is not the ideal subject for a close up but boy, is it growing fast.

It seems unlikely, but I’m hoping for a glimpse of sanity next week. Just a glimmer, a speck, something.

Almost two years ago, this strange plant arose in the garden. We’d just had freakish lightning storms in the Bay Area which produced little rain but caused hundreds of wildfires. And, I just gotten word that my mother was dying.

At first I couldn’t imagine where it came from. Outer space? Then I remembered that years earlier, when Mother lived with us, my husband came home from the hardware store with a bulb that he’d proudly paid fifteen dollars for. He didn’t know what it was or how to grow it, of course, but had been intrigued by the size. Mother turned to me and said: ” Well, they saw him coming.” He planted it in the backyard and forgot about it. But Mother didn’t. It went on her list of reasons why he should never shop alone.

The stalk grew and grew until it blossomed magnificently and I had to quit calling it the “Penis Plant.”

Last year the foliage emerged but no blossoms.

The foliage stayed green for a couple of months and then died just before Christmas.

I didn’t know what to expect this year but, sure enough, after an unusual lightning storm hit this area, look who showed up again.

It was wonderful to wake up to the sound of rain. Wonderful to go into the backyard to see this unusual plant arise again. Now I just have to resist the urge to read the news.