Summer Is Here!

Current Mood Music: Yma Sumac, "Malambo No.1”

Wow wow wow wow.

It was just a few weeks ago that the Pacific Northwest experienced an unprecedented heat wave (they’re officially calling it a “heat dome”) where temperatures reached a high of 115-degrees here in Portland. This, my friends, is not normal.

I repeat: This is not normal.

Portland rarely has had three-digit temps in June. In fact, the last time the city recorded over 100-degrees in the last week of June was in 1940.

Our neighbors in Salem and Seattle also broke temperature records.

While many of us were fortunate to have air conditioning, others were not, and Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties opened Cooling Centers. Businesses were forced to shut down for the record-breaking three days. I actually read a post on social media by someone who was complaining about all the local restaurants and food-service businesses that closed, and she was “confused why”, and was upset because she had to drive XX miles to find an open restaurant because it was “too hot to cook at home.” The cluelessness, lack of empathy and straight-up privilege that this person had really irked me. At the time of publication over 116 people died in Oregon alone because of the heat wave. A farm worker died out in the fields during the heatwave. Over 30 people died in Washington. More than 1 billion sea creatures died along Canada’s Pacific coast because of the Heat Dome. This is beyond heartbreaking.

Because the farming industry is so severely affected by changes in weather patterns and any extreme weather, many lost their crops, flowers, and product to the heat dome effect. As if this year wasn’t jam-packed with enough weather twists and turns (I’m looking at you Port-Narnia snowstorm in February), which caused its own ripple of effects. I learned of horror stories from farmer friends who lost entire crops, some couldn’t fulfill orders, hundreds to thousands of dollars lost in damages. This is their livelihood, and I have the utmost empathy and respect for this community that has chosen to pivot and continue the course. Even though we are a new business and this is our first year selling our flowers, we lost some money, too. Many of our perennials died. Our sweet peas crisped. Some of our newly planted roses were toast beyond repair. Hundreds of dollars in losses. But I always say, things could always be worse, and that this was also a learning opportunity to prepare oneself should this happen again. (I pray it does not.)

What I admire so much about this community is its resilience and strength. Yes, there were losses, but we have no choice but to bounce back. Our plants will work just as hard as we do to ensure that. Just a few days later, (and after much pruning, watering, and cleanup) I watched our garden space reawaken. New growth in places that were days ago barren, flowers reemerged, and overall repair and healing.

Yes, summer is notorious for bringing on the heat, but it’s also representative of a new cycle, it’s a time when some of our favorite flowers—zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, and food—tomatoes, chilies, raspberries and peaches, wake up and share with us their bounty. Now that’s something to be thankful for.