Like so many others right now, we are experiencing a bit of a heat wave.

It’s the “feels like 41” part that’s the killer.

For those of you in the US, 31C is 87.8F and 41C is 105.8F

Thankfully, my daughter has air conditioning where she works.  Whether or not it will make a difference behind the counter is questionable, though!  I will find out when I pick her up tonight.

So we’re doing very little of anything physical during the hottest parts of the day, right now!

Meanwhile, inspired by a video someone shared on Facebook, I am going to try an experiment.

After dropping my daughter off at work, I picked up a bag of mixed size balloons.  I used the big enameled container I found in the old kitchen – the one my mother used to mix bread dough in – and gave it a wash (a challenge, since it’s bigger than our sink), then used it to hold the balloons I filled with water.  The package had some teeny tiny balloons, too.  Those, I put in the fridge freezer.  Two batches of these bigger ones are now in the chest freezer.  I’ve got them sitting in reusable grocery bags, so they will be easier to access, later.

When they are frozen, I will put some out for the cats.  The tiny ones will fit in the bowls we have for the indoor cats.  I will start with one big one in one of the water containers for the outside cats and see how it goes over.  I plan to put a smaller one near where the kittens are.  As it melts, it will also water the bush that’s near the entrance to their hiding place.

It should be interesting to see how it works.  For starters, I foresee potential problems with the balloons freezing to each other, due to the condensation on the outside.  As long as I can transport them, that shouldn’t be a problem, since the balloons will be broken and removed before the ice is put out.

I hope the cats like it.

On the topic of animals…

While driving my daughter to work, about half way to town, we saw a small black bear crossing the road!  While I have always known we sometimes have bears around, this is the first time in my life I have actually seen one out here.  Pretty cool!

I imagine the poor thing was really suffering from the heat, though.  :-(

The Re-Farmer

Update:  Wow, that didn’t take long!  After finishing this post, I looked at the weather app again, before closing it down.  It’s already gotten hotter.