Once again, the real world made liars out of the forecasters. 😄
We were not supposed to break 30C today.
I’ve been watching the weather radar as rain supposedly passed right over us. Out my window, it was bright and sunny.
I headed out earlier with the animal repellent spray and used it around the garden beds. Hopefully, that will mean no more critter damage. We shall see!
The Re-Farmer
We managed to get a few things taken care of in the garden, once things started cooling down.
But first, kittens!
I wasn’t able to get pictures of all four of them, but these two seem to be a bit braver. :-) I also saw Rosencrantz and her two babies. It looks like they are actually living in that junk pile now.
I also saw the woodchuck again, this time diving under the garden shed. I don’t know if it was just trying to hide from me, or if that’s where it’s new den is.
One of the things that finally got done today was transplanting of the Hopi Black Dye sunflower seedlings that we’d tried starting indoors so long ago. There was a total of 8 to transplant. I also transplanted the few pink celery seedlings. I don’t expect them to grow, but I figured I’d give them a chance.
While I was refilling the watering can for the transplants, something caught my eye among the green peas.
Our first pea pods are developing!
The green pea pods are surprisingly large, for the size of the plants. There turned out to be quite a few of them we found as we watered. I didn’t see them this morning, but I may have missed them.
There was no missing these ones, though!
These pods are SO purple! I love them! :-D Among the purple peas, we only found two pods, so far.
Oh, I am so excited. :-D
Before I transplanted the sunflowers, which you can see in the row in the foreground, I hoed around the remaining Dorinny corn. Of the 7 rows we planted in this block, there are 4 rows left, and all of them have gaps. I did transplant about 5 corn plants from the other three rows into the larger gaps. They seem to have handled the disturbance well. Even the corn plants that got munched on seem to be recovering!
It’s hard to see, but after the watering was done, the girls put up the wire mesh on the last section of the squash tunnel. My younger daughter has been diligent in getting the winter squash, gourds, melons and peas trained to climb their various structures.
While they were putting up the wire mesh, I got another corn block hoed.
Even though we had already watered everything, I was finding the soil so dry, I watered all the sweet corn and sunflower beds, over again. Little by little, I’ll be hoeing all the blocks. Since these rows were just new garden soil placed directly on the ground, with no cardboard layer, nor any sort of organic matter underneath, what few plants that were growing here are working their way through. As this corner gets so baked in the sun, what little had been growing here can handle drought conditions. Their roots are incredibly tough and hard to pull. Now that the area is being watered for the first time, these plants are growing like I’ve never seen them before. I don’t want them choking out our corn and sunflowers, but my goodness, they are hard to dig up!
With these beds being so far from the house, we’re doing a lot of dragging of hoses around. Today, a pair of hoses gave out. The joined connectors both started to break, spraying water with remarkable pressure. So tomorrow, I’ll have to head into town to find both male and female connectors to replace the broken ones. Both of these hoses were purchased last year, but considering what we’re putting them through, I am not at all surprised that they would break where they did.
Oh, my daughter tells me that the potatoes are blooming now, too. When I watered them this morning, they still just had buds.
So much growth is happening right now!! :-)
On a completely different note, my husband got a notification email. Our StarLink kit is on its way. Our area should get coverage by mid to late this year – and we’re already midway through the year. I’m really hoping this new service works out, even though we would still be in Beta. Our satellite internet bill keeps going up, while the quality of our connection keeps going down. That is annoying enough in general, but I’m finding the WordPress editor seems to need higher connectivity than pretty much anything else. The editor simply won’t finish loading in any browser but Chrome and Tor. While everything loads much faster in Tor than on any other browser, the block editor does not work well if I have to go back and edit or adjust things, because blocks end up overlapping each other. Today, Chrome stopped working, too. Nothing will load except the tool bar across the top, and the question more icon in the bottom corner. The rest is blank. And sometimes, I don’t even get that much. Instead, WordPress just keeps timing out and I get error messages, instead.
So I’m using Tor right now, and am hoping that I can eventually load WordPress in one of my other browsers enough to open the draft and fix any weird formatting that might happen.
Hopefully, once we’re on StarLink, we’ll have a more stable connection. We’ll also have unlimited data, so we won’t need to have two accounts anymore. Switching could save us a couple hundred dollars a month, possibly more. Well worth the initial expense of setting up, which is pretty high, but doesn’t get billed all at once. For now, we’ll just be charged for the kit that’s being mailed out to us, which includes the dish, router, tripod and all the cables, parts and pieces needed to install it. My brother knows quite a few people already on the service, and they are really, really happy with it.
For now, though, I have to keep juggling browsers, just to be able to keep posting on this blog. I suppose I could use my phone, but I really need the big monitor and full size, ergonomic keyboard! That and the editing software I use to resize any photos I include, so they take up less storage space in WordPress.
So we’re getting a little bit of technical progress to go with our garden progress. :-)
The Re-Farmer
With the expected heat today, I headed out earlier to do my rounds, and stayed out to do extra watering with the hose fertilizer attachment.
When I first went outside, at about 7:30am it was almost chilly. An hour later, the heat was already hitting. The above photo was taken between 8:30 and 9am. The thermometer read 25C/77F but my weather app listed only 17C/63F! Still, in the time I was out there, the temperature rose almost 10 degrees in under 1 1/2 hours.
Later on, after I’ve gone over the instructions, I’ll be going back out to use the Critter Ridder. I didn’t see any new damage in the cord and sunflower beds, but I think the big carrot bed is still being chewed on. Even the carrot greens in the old kitchen garden showed signs of being nibbled on, though nowhere near as bad as the others.
One of the things I found yesterday was another solar powered spotlight with motion detector. This one will be set up on the side of the house, over the old kitchen garden. I want to position it so that smaller creatures eating our vegetables will trigger the light. Hopefully, that will startle them away. We won’t be able to set the light up facing south, as instructed, but that area gets lots of light right up until sunset. Not even shade from the ornamental apple trees reach it, so I think it should be able to charge up just fine.
The girls set up their new box fan in their window and had it running while my older daughter could finally work on some commissions, all night. This morning, before heading to bed, she told me that having the van made the upstairs the most comfortable part of the house last night! Which is a HUGE difference.
The forecasts have changed for today. We were expected to hit 28C/82F as a high, but now they’re saying we will get a high of 31C/88F, with the humidex at 34C/93F. Tomorrow, we’re now supposed to hit a high of 36C/97F, and the day after, 37C/99F. On Sunday, we’re supposed to reach “only” 31C/88F with a chance of thundershowers. I don’t expect any thundershowers to actually reach us, but it would be nice! Until then, we’re just going to have to be diligent with that watering! The girls have been waiting until after 8:30pm to do the evening water while it’s cooling down, so as not to shock the plants with cold hose water. I’ll have to keep heading out early to water again, before the heat really starts to hit. As disappointed with the loss of our carrots and lettuces, and the one beat bed, I’m very happy with how the beans, tomatoes, onions, corn, sunflowers, squash and melons are doing! The peas aren’t very big, but they are blooming, including more of the purple peas. The cucamelons are also quite small, still, but more of them are big enough to start training up the chain link fence.
It’s worth heading out early to beat the heat and tend to them. Even for someone who really, really dislikes mornings! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Okay, this is getting ridiculous!
I don’t think the needle on that thermometer can go any further. What do you think that’s at? 65C/149F? Closer to 70C/158F? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that thermometer get that high.
Of course, the weather apps didn’t show temperatures that high. One of them allows me to look at historical weather. Our average temperature for June is 22C/72F, and our record high for the month was 37C/99F, set in 1995. I’m pretty sure we did beat that, today. The average low for June is 12C/54F, with a record low of 0C/32F, set in 2009.
This is the thermometer in the sun room.
This is with the inner door open, the screen window in the outer door open as wide as it can, and the ceiling fan going at its highest setting, and it still got to about 37-38C/99-100F. There are still a few trays of seedlings (and cups of dirt I’m pretending to expect things to germinate, still) in the sun room while I take the rest out to harden off. The trays outside got misted several times during the day, but a bunch of the squash and melons were really droopy by the end of the day. For all the misting they got, they still dried out quite a bit, so everything got a thorough watering before they came in for the night. Except the corn. They get put back into their bin, without the outer cups, so I put water in the bin for them to absorb from below.
When the girls went out as things started to cool down, they checked on the netting over the lettuces and beets. They ended up flipping one side up over the other, because there were so many insects caught inside. Including several of these guys.
This snowberry clearwing moth decided to just sit there and chill instead of flying away!
We also had a visitor, as things cooled down.
Madam Stinky came over for a snack! Later on, we saw a second one in the kibble house with this first one. I am loath to chase any critter away from food when it’s not doing any harm, but it’s really not good for them, and there is potential for harm. I think they are both hungry mamas. It’s certainly the time of year for them to have babies. When I used the hose to spray them away, the second one, which is quite a bit bigger than this one, did NOT want to leave! It kept grunting at me and trying to go back to the kibble house, until the water finally drove it away.
They’ll be back tonight, I’m sure! :-D
Before it had cooled down enough to start the evening watering, I checked on the garden beds to see how they were handling the heat. Especially the new transplants. I’m happy to say that the tomatoes and sunflowers were doing just fine. Only the bunching onions were starting to get a little bit wimpy.
While checking other beds around the transplanted sunflowers, I spotted little bits of green and pink.
We have beans!!!
These were not there when I checked them this morning, but both the yellow and green bean beds had sprouts, some still carrying their brightly coloured inoculated seed covering. The Royal Burgundy didn’t have any sprouts, but when I came back later to water them, even that bed had sprouts just starting to break through the soil. I’m so excited!!!
While watering the sunflower transplants, though, I got an even bigger, more exciting surprise.
This is a Hopi Black Dye sunflower seedling! I had to check and double check to be sure. I marked the spacing to plant them with flags, which are still there, so I could use them to confirm that yes, these are in the right places and everything. Considering how long it took for just one Hopi Black Dye seedling to sprout in the tray, I am totally stunned that they are already sprouting after being direct sown, just 5 days ago! All I can think is that the seeds we tried to start indoors were just too cold to sprout, even in the warmth of the sun room. Now that I’ve started to take the tray outside, to harden off the cucamelons sharing the tray, we might get even more of them.
The heat may be hard on humans and animals, but some of our plants are just loving it!
Hopefully, the extra watering they all got will help the ones that maybe don’t like the heat quite as much. :-D
After the watering was done, and things had cooled down a bit more, I did decide to do one transplanting job done today, but that will get its own post. :-)
The Re-Farmer
This is from a screen cap on my phone’s weather app. Just before 3 in the afternoon, and we’re at 35C/95F, and it feels like 38C/100F.
At least, that’s the data from the weather station this app is linked to.
This is the thermometer outside a south facing window.
Yeah. The thermometer is “only” labelled to 50C/122F, and the needle has passed that. It looks like it’s close to where a 60C/140F would be. Certainly past where a 55C/131F would be.
This thermometer is mounted on a white wall, so there’s no reflective heat from any dark surfaces, but it’s also in full sun, so it’s probably reading a bit high. Still, this is what it would feel like if someone were insane enough to be out in the sun today.
Wow.
The Re-Farmer
Well, the heat wave is back!
When I headed out to do my rounds this morning, it was already 26C/78F. When I grabbed the hose to use it briefly, before topping up the cats’ water bowls, the water was almost hot! So I decided to water a bunch of things, using up the warmer water so as not to shock the plants, until I could fill the cats’ bowls with cold water.
Since I have not found what I need to fix the front tap, we have all our hoses linked together at the back tap. That’s almost 300 feet of hose.
I got quite a bit of watering done before it started coming out cold! The nice thing about being on well, though, is that it does get cold. Ice cold, even. When we were on city water, on days like this, the best we could get was maybekindasorta cool.
I’m going to have to get in the habit of carrying a basket or something with me, when I do my rounds.
This are thinnings from the three different carrot beds. I would have picked more but 1) it was getting hard to hold them all in one hand – especially the ones where the greens broke off, 2) the mosquitoes were eating me alive and 3) I had a Creamsicle deciding to jump up on my back.
And roll around.
And repeatedly start to fall off before I finally got him off (with only minor scratches! LOL).
So he then decided to start rolling right over the carrots!!
*sigh*
We have lots of little sunburst squash showing up, but just the one bigger one. I didn’t want it to get too tough and seedy, so I picked it now. Later, I will choose one that I will leave to go to seed, for next year. We will probably still buy seeds, but I’d like to at least try saving seed as well.
This afternoon, I made a quick run into town. By the time I got home, we had reached our high of the day, which we are still now, now. At 32C/89F and a humidex putting us at 38C/100F, I was very glad to see my daughter meet me at the garage to help me hall the water jug refills back to the house! Yes, I did have the wagon, but getting anything through the door with kittens about is much easier with 2 people!
The sun room is definitely NOT a place to hang out right now.
If we were still keeping the doors open for the cats, I would have had the ceiling fan on to help at least a little. Right now, I just have the replacement door open – it has a screen window that actually opens and closes, unlike the one we replaced. :-D My mother used to have lacy curtains on all the windows because of how hot it would get in here. I can understand why, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having a sun room.
Who knows. We might use this at least part of this room as a greenhouse, some day.
The girls must be just dying upstairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if my daughter has to stop working because her computer and drawing tablet are overheating again!
We’re supposed to “cool down” after today, but the only means we’re supposed to remain below 30C, over the next two weeks.
One of the things I did while doing my evening rounds was bring the rain barrel we’d found behind the storage out, closer to the garden. My thought was to fill it with water, so that I can use ambient temperature water in the garden, rather than the hose. Unfortunately, since I’d last rolled it aside, it has developed cracks where it had been lying on the ground. I’m thinking I can patch them with some silicone sealant and still use it. I think I even have some, already. Before I do that, though, I have to figure out what I can use as a cover for it. I wouldn’t want some critter to fall in.
At some point, we will dig up the hose to the tap by the garden and replace it. The set up for the tap itself is getting very wobbly, so I want to redo that, as well. Thinking of how we do want to keep at least part of the area back there as a vegetable garden, I not only want to have a tap I can hook a hose onto, but I’d like to set up a surface area of some kind, so we can wash the veggies right away, or even just wash our own hands. Maybe with a small bench to sit on while scrubbing, for old and decrepit people like myself. ;-)
We can’t even start on that until we get the branch piles cleared away, first. The line runs almost under one of them – and that’s where water was spraying through the ground when I tested the tap. :-D
I’m really looking forward to when those are gone!
The plan was to hire the company that cleared trees from the roof and power lines to bring in their massive chipper this year, but after having to replace so many expensive items just this month, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to do it after all. Ultimately, though, we should invest in our own chipper.
All in good time.
Little by little, it’ll get done. :-)
The Re-Farmer
Yesterday, things cooled down enough it was actually worth opening up my window.
There is still a problem with that.
For some reason, the cats really, really like to attack the bugs through this window screen. I try to keep on top of it, but they’ve managed to cause some minor damage already, and I’m often forced to close the window to keep them from clawing their way through the screen!
With the window closed, they prefer the spaces I’ve left for them on my utility shelf. As crack-eyed Two-Face is demonstrating! :-D
The cool of the evening was a welcome respite.
It didn’t last long, unfortunately.
By about 5pm, we reached our high of 32C/89F, with the humidex at 38C/100F. The low of 21C/70F we’re supposed to reach tonight is going to welcome, along with any rain we might get.
We have yet to try and move the counter today. I’m hoping to try this evening, but I don’t have high hopes for that.
This afternoon, I headed into town and made another deposit to the garage, against the work on my mother’s car. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, he’ll order the part and shoot to have it done at the end of July, when I can pay off the balance. I am really appreciating how patient he’s been about my mother’s car!
The down side it, almost our discretionary funds in our budget has been doing to get my mother’s car fixed, rather than towards things like what we’ll need to buy to build the cordwood outhouse, or the plywood to make a base on the trailer frame, or a cover for the old basement window to replace the one that fell off, or… the list goes on. Between that and the heat making it downright dangerous to work outside, I already feel like spring was almost completely wasted, and summer doesn’t look like it’ll be much better. :-(
Still, we do what we can, and try not to stress about what we can’t.
Once I was done at the garage, I went to the pharmacy to pick up prescription refills. We’d called them in yesterday, but one of my husband’s meds that was renewed last month, was only renewed for 30 days. They had sent a fax to the doctor’s office, but there had been no reply yet. So they filled my husband’s bubble packs without it, and when I talked to them today, the pharmacist said he would send the fax again.
Along with mine. It turns out mine was renewed for a short time, too, and there was only 15 days worth, left. I decided to wait on those. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick up both at the same time, in a few days. Unfortunately, the missing medication for my husband is one of his pain killers. That is NOT going to go well for him. His pain is barely controlled as it is. Being down one of his painkillers is going to make life decidedly more unpleasant for him. :-(
My next stop was at the hardware store, where I wanted to look at different types of fasteners to use on the wire screen door I made for the basement. I ended up going with the old standby: hook and eye closures. I also found some angle plates that will solve a problem for me, in making a new screen window for the old part basement to replace the one that finally broke apart over the winter. On that, I plan to use both the 1 inch wire that I used on the door, to keep the critters out, and window screen mesh (I found rolls of it when cleaning out the basement!) to keep the bugs out. The air circulation from outside is needed to help keep the old basement dry, together with the blower fan. With the materials I have, I knew I’d have a problem making strong corners on the frame, and these right-angle plates are just what I need to solve that problem!
Once I got home, I put the hook and eye closures on the screen in the door. There are now 4 of them, and there is no way the cats will be able to push their way through anymore!
We had talked about possibly removing the basement door, but decided against it. When it is fully open, it blocks my bedroom door. So I’ll just leave my own door open, and the basement door will provide me with privacy. :-D
With the heat, just putting on those hook and eye closures was enough to leave me dripping. I’d hate to think how much hotter it would be if we didn’t have that door open! It’s like poor man’s geothermal. :-D
One of the other things I did while in town was swing by the grocery store to get more things that don’t need to be cooked. It’s been too hot to eat; none of us have appetites, and no one has the energy to cook. So fruits, vegetables, and sandwiches are the order of the day! I have been telling myself to go eat something since before I started writing this post, because I’m absolutely famished, but I have zero appetite. It’s the sort of thing where we have to make ourselves eat, just so we don’t end up getting dizzy spells or something. We have no problem making sure to stay hydrated, though, that’s for sure.
*sigh*
Well, I guess I should go make myself a food of some kind.
The Re-Farmer
Our current heat wave continues.
At 5pm, we reached 28C/82F with a humidex of 34C/93F, and we continue to get warnings for heat, flash floods and high water. Looking at the weather radar, however, it doesn’t look like the storms will hit us. We’ll be lucky to get rain. Usually, these systems come in from the North West, dip to the South of us, then get pushed back north to the East of us. Sometimes, they pass to the West of us. This time, there seems to be strong enough winds coming from the Southeast to actually push the system back to the Northwest of us!
The long range forecasts are not showing much relief, either. We’re looking to stay in the mid to high 20’s for the next two weeks. The only relief is that the lows are finally dropping to the mid to high teens, instead of staying in the 20’s, as they have been lately.
With this house, typically the basements stay cool, the main floor gets warm, while the second floor gets insanely hot. With the temperatures being so consistently hot, even the basements are starting to get warmer, though they are still significantly better than the rest of the house. The upstairs is getting unbearable. My daughter just had to stop working and shut down her computer, because it was over heating.
Normally, to help keep the house cool, the basement doors would be left open. With needing to keep the cats out of the old part basement completely, and keep the kittens in the new part basement, we have not been able to do this.
Last year, we used my daughter’s grid wall to act as a barrier in front of the old part basement door. The doorway is wider than a panel of grid wall, so we had two of them hooked together, at an angle. It did the job, but was very much in the way.
Today, I decided to do something about that.
After finishing my rounds this morning, I went into a shed not far from the barn, where I’d found some wood that was still in good shape. Some of them had 3″ deck screws in them, so I left those behind (though I did end up with a couple that had a screw at one end that I’d missed). The little wagon was great for bringing the pile over. :-)
Earlier, I’d also cleared away and hosed down the patio blocks in front of our kitchen window.
One of the things we need to do is build some sort of bin for our garbage bags, because the skunks are tearing them apart when we put them outside. Normally, there is a bench against the wall, and some other stuff, but when I cleaned up the mess and saw the gunk from however many times this has happened, left behind, I just had to hose it all down.
This meant we had access to the basement window.
It was much easier to pass the wood through the window, rather than trying to get it in through the main doors, then the basement door, then down the stairs.
All while dodging cats and kittens.
So this worked out very well.
I had enough of the wire mesh we’d used to make a divider between the basements, to make wire mesh door.
The kittens were very … helpful. Yeah. That’s it. :-D
I measured the basement door and sized it to match that. We were considering taking the door off its hinges and putting in the screen instead.
Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way.
I had also considered putting it on hinges on the inside of the door frame, but it turns out the frame is narrower on the basement side of the door jam than on the door side.
Which makes no sense, but at this point, we’re pretty used to things not making sense in this house! :-D
For now, we’ve got it rigged up with hooks and Bungee cords. I will be going into town tomorrow, and am thinking of stopping at a hardware store and seeing what they’ve got that would work.
Personally, standing in front of it, I felt nothing. We have the big blower fan going constantly in this basement, trying to keep the floor relatively dry, but I felt no air movement at all. Later, my husband went by and said he could feel a cool breeze, so I’m hoping it was just me.
If we can work out how to secure this, so that cats can’t push their way through, I have enough of the wire mesh left to make another one for the other basement door. We could even hinge it to open into the entryway, instead of over the basement stairs. Which would be so much better!
It isn’t much, but every little bit helps to cope with this heat!
One of these years, I hope to get an actual air conditioner installed.
The Re-Farmer
I missed my daily post yesterday. The day was pretty much a total write off!
This is largely why…
This screencap was taken shortly before 1pm. We were at 30C/86F with a humidex of 37C/98F, but we easily reached the expected high of 33C/91F and humidex of 39C/102F by the end of the afternoon. The hottest time of day is typically about 4:30-5pm.
I realize you folks living in the south are probably getting a giggle out of our thinking this is really hot, but my goodness, how do you guys put up with it??? :-D It’s a lot cooler in the house, thankfully. Well, on the main floor, at least, but we were all just melting. The girls have it the worst, on the second floor, though.
We ended up with three weather warnings at the same time, too – for the heat, high water levels and potential flash floods! Several towns and cities in the South West of our province did get hit with flash floods and severe thunderstorms. Some areas even had tornado warnings! I was keeping a close eye on the weather radar, watching the storms.
They went right past us!
The most severe parts of the system got pushed up to the North of us, and while some towns to the West certainly got hit, we got the edges of the system. Just some rain!
I am increasingly fascinated by our little local climate bubble. What is it about our geographical location that causes these weather systems to be pushed away or around? There are a lot of lakes in the area, including one huge one, so that certainly would have an effect. We’re kinda in the middle, East to West, between the biggest ones, but well to the South of the middle, from North to South.
Whatever the reason, I’m thankful that it means we aren’t getting hit by the worst of the storm systems. I really feel for some of the small towns and cities in the South-west, though. They get hit by every one!!
Today is going to be another hot one; we’re expected to hit 32C/89F with a humidex of 39C/102F again, by about 5 and 6pm. We still have the three alerts for heat, high water and flooding, throughout the South of our province. Right now, however, we’re sunny and clear. It’s insanely humid. Yesterday, I made a quick trip into town to get a couple of our 18L water jugs refilled. Even though the water was not at all cold, the jugs were covered with condensation by the time I got home! This morning, everything was still wet, as if we’d just had a rainfall.
We did, but at about 3am!
In the old kitchen garden, one of my mother’s roses has been blooming, for the first time since we moved out here.
This rose was little more than a scraggly stick for the past couple of summers. It’s overshadowed by one of the ornamental apple trees, and I really wasn’t sure if it would make it. We still worked around it, when cleaning out and mulching the garden, just to give it a chance, and it seems to have paid off! All the other roses around the house are the white Cherokee roses. I’m glad the one different type of rose is managing to survive.
When checking the sunflowers, I found another loss.
This pretty much confirms it’s a deer. The other critters it might have been would have clipped it much lower down.
It’s like a deer decided to have a quick snack while passing through!
This one will likely survive, but I doubt it will produce a seed head.
Thankfully, lots more seedlings are popping up. The replacement variety I’d picked up had lots of smaller seeds in the package than the ones I got before, so my daughter was able to plant two or three in each spot. We’ll actually have some to thin out, as they get bigger.
Assuming nothing eats them, first!
The Re-Farmer
Today was our day to go into the city to do our big shopping trip.
We didn’t finish.
We currently have more weather warnings. This time for heat!
I took the above screenshot shortly before 4:30pm. We might actually go a bit higher before it starts cooling down. 30C/86F is hot enough, but check out the humidex expected for Monday! 40C = 104F
We’ve been getting enough rain lately that our municipality has removed the burn ban, completely. No restrictions at all right now! We have lots that needs to be burned, but with the heat, who wants to be around fire right now? :-D
And we don’t have air conditioning in the van anymore, nor even working fans in the console.
It did make the trip into the city … interesting!
We managed to get to the Walmart and the Costco to stock up. After gassing up at the Costco, we were going to go to a couple more places. Then road construction and detours had us doing a route march through residential areas (why are they designed to be such mazes???) before we could back track, go back through the construction, and finally take a road that would get us to the street we needed, albeit at a different spot than I was originally after. By that time, I was done. We just went home.
Part of the reason I was okay with doing that is because my daughter asked for an extra trip into the city, which we’ll be doing tomorrow. She’s buying us a new stove! Since we’ll be in the city again anyhow, we can also pick up the rest of the stuff we need for the month.
Considering she is using her savings and had to quit her job, I am extremely grateful that she is willing to do this for us. The stove we have has only three working elements right now – we stopped using the 4th when we saw sparks every time we turned it on – and even those don’t heat up well, among other issues.
There isn’t much in the monthly shop we need to get, though. The freezer and pantry are stocked up again. We also have lots of cat food and litter – we’d run out of both, completely, as of this morning! The only things left are the items we don’t want to get in bulk quantities, like fresh fruits and vegetables, or ingredients we can only find in various ethnic sections of a grocery franchise we regularly visit now.
With the current heat wave, getting work done outside is going to be difficult. Unless I start getting up at 5am, while it’s still cooler (well; not so much over the next few days). I might just have to start going that. Which means, no more staying up until 2am!
It would mean kicking cats off my bed, too. :-D
Oh, to have the life of our cats! <3
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 