![]() The photos of Miss Ellie and Jolee cooling themselves in the garden bring to mind a poem by an anonymous writer given to me soon after Miss Ellie passed. Pig iron was so named because it’s shaped into molds that look like suckling piglets. The adage sweating like a pig comes from melting pig iron, a crude iron that sweats when it cools. Where does Sweating Like a Pig originate?īack to the old time sayings-Like dogs, pigs have only a few sweat glands that aren’t very useful in managing their body temperature, so Wilbur wallows in the mud to cool off. And it gives the plants time to absorb the water before it evaporates. But if you have to use sprinklers, early morning is best, so leaves have all day to dry to reduce the likelihood of foliar disease. And it allows the plants to absorb the moisture through the night before the drying sun and heat of the next day. Watering the root zones in the early evening, before 6 PM, is the best time, so leaves have time to dry before nighttime. I’ve advised clients with established gardens to resume watering distressed plants until the dry spell ends. Use a slow stream or soaker setting from your garden hose. And, combined with the lack of rain, it’s caused havoc to many plants. Exerting yourself in the heat is downright dangerous. Never mind the oppressive humidity adding to the misery with several days of heat advisories. We’ve indeed endured a wretchedly hot spell. While the Dog Star seems to rise later than it did in ancient times, it still appears during the summer heat and is sometimes visible to the naked eye at the height of the day. On the contrary, the ancient Egyptians associated the rise of Sirius before the Sun with the floodwaters of the Nile River, which was welcomed to their desert lands bringing fertile soil to grow crops. They thought the brightness of Sirius added to the Sun’s heat. The Dog Days of summer originates from the Roman days when they associated the rise of Sirius before the Sun as the signal of the beginning of evil drought and disease. The Romans thought Sirius added to the Sun’s heat. Hence Sirius, which means scorching or glowing in Greek, is referred to as the Dog Star. And Sirius is in the Canis Major constellation, meaning the Greater Dog. But it turns out it has to do with the stars.ĭuring the peak of summer, the Sun and Sirius, the brightest star we see on earth, are in the same area. Maybe their heavy panting is what earned the name Dog Days. However, dogs pant heavily to cool themselves as they only have a few sweat glands on the pads of their feet. Miss Ellie Mae was cooling off during the Dog Days of Summer.
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