I've never liked wearing a hat. Plus, for some of the vehicles around the nursery, I'm required to wear a helmet, so I wasn't eager to be switching back and forth between hat and helmet all day. So I ignored that bit of advice.
Sunscreen, on the other hand is just an "ick" factor thing. I don't like to feel greasy. I don't like when dirt and dust stick to my lotioned up skin. So I ignored the second bit of advice too.
The water thing I tried to be good about. I just didn't realize how much water I would really need.
The crew I'm supervising these days is made up of four guys from India. When I told them "looks like it'll be a hot one today" they laughed at me, and reminded me that I had never experienced the kind of heat they were accustomed to in India. Fair enough. However, for the kind of work we're doing these days... heavy physical work, it's plenty hot. It wasn't long before even they were slowing down from the heat.
"You need to wear a hat," the de-facto leader of my work crew reminded me part way through that first day.
He was right, of course. I was squinting and flushed from the sun on my face.
"You'll cook your brain without a hat," one of the other supervisors on the nursery advised me later.
I decided to relent, and find a hat. Even if I could tough out the heat, I wasn't going to withstand the opinions of my coworkers, who would fairly regard me as foolishly stubborn to not wear a hat while working in the hot sun.
I think you can guess how I learned the sunscreen lesson. Yes, along the lines of how one would place tinfoil on the tips of a turkey's wings while cooking, it really is wise to get some sunscreen onto the tips of your ears before they become extra crispy.
As for water, I early on volunteered to bring some water out for my work crew, who were working in an area of the nursery where it was a bit of a distance from drinking water. I brought it in smaller containers at first, but I found they went through it pretty quickly in the heat. By mid-week, I was bringing it in a 20 litre container, and still had to refill it once during the day. Clearly, it takes a fair amount of water to keep hydrated while working hard on a hot summer day.
I probably should have just listened to my wife the first time around on all three accounts. That's one lesson I seem endlessly able to resist learning.
When I came home on Wednesday, the plants in my yard also had a thing or two to say about shade and water. My tomatoes were so wilted I would have bet money they were goners. Sorry, I should have taken pictures. As is, the pictures I'm about to post actually show my garden in pretty good condition. A bit of water and a cooler weekend was all it took to allow most of my plants to recover.
This is a hybrid china/gallica rose 'Cardinal de Richelieu', complemented by the blue flowers of a delphinium, and the leaves of an iris and Baptisia australis. This rose isn't completely spotless from disease, but it has a gracefully spreading habit, and look at that color! Reddish to begin, but deepening to purple with age. Have a look at all those developing rose buds in the the centre of the frame. This rose isn't done with putting on a show yet.
(The swing set, BTW, was snuck back there in a daring nighttime operation by my wife and undisclosed accomplices. She claimed at the time that is was there for exactly one year - this was couple of years back. I think she sometimes feels bad about it, and lets me get away with a little more clutter in the garden room and back deck than she otherwise would tolerate, so I'm keeping my mouth shut.)
If you zoom on the photo a bit, you'll see that there's still a fair bit of colour left in the beds around this monstrosity. These are the flowers that haven't yet fried in the summer sun.
One last photo:
Stay tuned for icky introspection, for my next blog post "Why I quit my life in retail and bought some magic beans instead (part 1)".
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