This week has been extremely hot in central Oklahoma, with a few days over 100 F°. My balcony garden is starting to droop during the day. The garden at the farm is also in poor condition now. The grasshoppers have gotten out of control and have eaten many of our plants. We have gotten some more netting to cover the rest of the trees. It was too hot to go out much so I have been cooking a lot this week. Hopefully, the weather will cool down next week and I can go out more. The pentas is still blooming nicely and not drooping at all. It seems to tolerate the heat well. The Blackeyed Susans are also handling the hot weather well. I also saw some beautiful Liriope Muscari in bloom this week. This is also called lilyturf and it has a small purple flower spike. I also saw a very nice desert willow this week in my city. I haven’t had time to do as much drawing as usual, although I did do some sketches from a floral watercolor book. I did do a lot of cooking this week. I tried a few recipes from Eva Longoria’s book, My Mexican Kitchen. The tres leches cake was a birthday request from my boyfriend. The cake turned out great but I had mixed results with the tortillas. I also made teriyaki chicken this week. I am ready to welcome August and hope it brings cooler temperatures.
Lisa Ledbetter 