THE HOTTEST DAY YET

Harvest will likely happen soon

Sunday (July 21) was an excessively hot 102. I don’t recall ever seeing it that hot here at the farm. It was still hot at 9:30 p.m. – 88 outside and 85 in our bedroom. Too hot for comfortable rest.

Boy, would my dad be impressed! When he was staying here at the farmhouse, he would call Mother in the evening, and they would discuss the temp at the farm compared to town (the valley). My dad enjoyed weather-watching.

Suffice it to say that we had a cooler morning and welcomed the opportunity to air the house, but by noon it was heating up again to a more seasonable 93.

And it’s still smoky. I can’t see Cottonwood Butte to the south and while I can see Teakean Butte to the north, it’s somewhat obscured. Regional fires are still burning but progress has been made.

We heard that it was quite cool in Seattle yesterday (Sunday) and even cooler this morning, so we hope for more tolerable temps. As I say every year about this time, fall is in the air.

And how have we coped here where we have no air conditioning? Well, the ceiling fans create a nice breeze. And of course, we don’t turn on the oven. I cooked huns and “baked” banana bread in Crockpots placed on the sunporch. “No-bake” cookies are the order of the day. And Mike made ice cream.

We know a rooster pheasant roams the property – probably an escapee from the hunting club in the canyon. We hear him more than we see him, but this morning I looked out the bathroom window to see him in the grove. Well, he moved on, but then Mike and I watched a pair of huns with a brood of twelve little ones as they breakfasted in the front yard. I suspect they live in the cattails at the pond. We also see doves, but the quail seem to have moved out toward the canyon. I can still hear them in the distance. KW