Photo by Rob Cardillo

Prune off the round green seed pods of crepe myrtles now. This will help drooping branches stand up straighter, plus you may get a second crop of flowers in fall!

Photo by Beth Dreiling Hontzas

Never commit to any outside gardening task that takes longer than drinking a cocktail. Remember, when it’s hot and humid, you don’t want to overextend yourself. Grumpy favors martinis, mojitos, and Dark & Stormy’s.

Don’t get struck by lightning! This can be unpleasant. When a thunderstorm approaches, try not to be the tallest thing around or atop the tallest thing around. Contrary to popular belief, wearing metal-soled shoes does not make you a more likely target. When a 100,000-amp lightning bolt is pondering where to cross a mile-high void from cloud to land, it doesn’t care whether your shoes are lined with steel or lined with cheese. If you’re the shortest path, you get fried.

Photo by taigasylvan

The safest place to be when lightning strikes is inside a car with the windows up. This isn’t because the rubber tires insulate the car from the ground. The tires make no more difference than your cheese shoes. It’s because the car’s metal frame safely conducts a lightning strike around you and into the ground. Same principle works with airplanes. They get struck all the time, but their metal frames conduct the electricity around the cabin and not through it. This is why Grumpy recommends that whenever you fly, you insist on a seat inside the plane and not mounted atop it.