THE HEAT IS ON...

Hola, darlings!

The last day I spent any substantial amount of time outside was last week Saturday (July 16), which was hot and muggy, but nothing - NOTHING - compared to what visited us last Sunday (July 17).  And has stayed, and stayed, and stayed, and will be staying, so the weather reports are saying, until NEXT Monday.  Today the relative temperature peaked at 107 degrees F, with a dew point of 75.  Now, shortly after 8 p.m., the temperature has dropped to a balmy 101 degrees F with a dew point of 72.  I wish I could say "no sweat."  Ha, ha, that's supposed to be a joke!

Tomorrow it will be - well, who the hell knows.  We've been breaking local temperatures every day since this "heat dome" thing began, and it's covering probably two-thirds of the entire country, from the Great Plains states all the way to the East Coast!  All I know is that I'm very grateful for my central air conditioned home, and my central air conditioned office, and even air conditioned buses.  I just drip sweat everywhere in between.  All kidding aside, this kind of heat is deadly, and many people have already died from heat-related causes.  It's damn scary out there, and I'm petrified.  I seem to have a tendency toward hypchondria and imagine every little bump, bruise, ache, pain, cold, etc., as some deadly disease.  It's horrid thinking that way and I fight it with all my might; so much so that sometimes I actually am actually very ill and ignore it, writing it off to my imaginings!

Since this nasty heat wave started, I've been experiencing problems breathing while outdoors just walking, not doing anything else but walking!  After doing some research and also talking to other people who have to be out and about outside like me sometimes, I was somewhat reassured that my breathing problems are rather normal.  The air is WET - it's saturated with water (that's the dew point).  As I've said before, the moment that dew points creeps above 60 (even 60 is uncomfortable for me), I lose my energy and get-up-and-go.  If I'm uncomfortable at dew point 60, can you imagine what I'm dealing with at dew point 75, which it's been at off and on over the past several days?

Well, relief is in sight (supposedly) by next Monday.  So, that's only Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to get through...

One good thing (is there any good thing out of something like this?) - I've lost weight.  Takes a fricking heat disaster to do it...

Promised Stormy Weather Hasn't Arrived Yet...

After I finished cutting the grass out back yesterday I was whipped!  It was warm and humid but there was a bit of a breeze so I got through the lawn in two sessions -- only because the mower ran out of gas when I still had about 200 square feet to cut.  So I had to wait for the mower to cool down in a patch of shade while I myself recuperated with feet up and a glass of ice water on the deck.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon puttering and reading, puttering and reading.  I'd do a little bit of gardening, then a whole lot of reading, rinse and repeat...

So I didn't get a whole lot done yesterday other than get more bug bites despite spraying myself down 3 times with bug spray!  But I sure did enjoy my day off from blogging and thinking and everything else! 

I should have shut the house down last night and turned the AC on, but it was hovering on the brink of coolness outside -- no breeze -- so I sweated it out and eventually did fall asleep.  I got up at 6:15 a.m. and opened up the doors downstairs and let the early morning coolness seep into the house.  Between the patio door in the dinette and the front door in the living room I have a clear path and get good cross ventilation.  I was able to read my newspaper in peace and quiet as the sun rose higher and higher in the east but still hidden behind the tree line across the street, so the house stayed cool.  It was heaven!  But by 7:45 the sun was high enough to start heating the house, and I could feel the temperature creeping up even as I was just sitting still reading.  When sweat started forming on my upper lip, I knew it was time to shut down the house and turn the AC on.  Ahhhh, relief!

So - no outside today - except for a quick run to dump a watering can of water on the grass seed sprouting where the city took out a tree stump on a corner of my front lot some weeks ago - and a quick trip out back to clean out the bird baths and put fresh water in.  Those baths saw HEAVY traffic yesterday!  I was amazed at the quantity and variety of birds who flew by to get drinks and take dips as I sat out back all afternoon!  Early today (before it heated up) I pulled out the third bird bath and parked it center front about 10 feet from my front window, where I have a view of it as I sit and type this.  Once the birds discover it (it usually takes a day or two) I expect to be entertained with regular visits. 

I checked the weather a bit ago.  Thunderstorms are expected this afternoon and possibly severe weather tonight.  Yesterday was a bust - not a drop of rain!  I watered in the back from about 1:45 until about 8 p.m. as I puttered around and relaxed on the deck under the umbrella.  Occasionally it rained leaves from the Chinese elms overhead.  As I mentioned yesterday, lots of leaf drop again this year, such has been the weather.  Cha ching!  I can just imagine what my water bill will be for the quarter.  Damn!  But the trees, grass and flowers are very very happy with me. They are showering me with love today.  It's lush and green out back so I guess it's worth it, even if it is too uncomfortable for me to sit outside today.  The flowers espeically are putting on a show - the rugosa roses sent forth three new flowers just for me this morning - I could smell them all the way through my upstairs bedroom window which overlooks them to the southeast - and the day lilies haven't even bloomed yet!  That's unheard of - they are about 3 weeks late this year!  Usually by now they are bursting forth and are finished blooming (they bloom sequentially) in about 10 days.  Not this year!  So it's possible I'll have flowers into the beginning of August, which will be wonderful!  It doesn't take much to make me happy...

The temperature at 9:40 a.m. was 82 degrees F and the dew point was a whopping 70!  That's tropical, and it's difficult to breathe unless you're a kid or under 30.  Everyone else is just kidding themselves if they say they're not affected by this kind of moisture content in the air, it's like trying to do normal chores inside a steam bath which is to say, impossible unless you want to keel over!  Hopefully the sun will soon be swallowed by clouds and it won't get up to the promised 88 degrees. 

So, I don't feel like doing a thing again today, but I'm doing laundry because I need clean underwear and fresh clothes to wear this coming work week.  When is my next three day weekend...  LOL!  I had like three in a row and am terribly spoiled now...

Aha - my first bird visitor to the newly planted bird bath out front!

Another pic from yesterday morning:

It's Grandma Squirrel at the edge of the deck, and just at the edge of the dividing line between shade cast from the house and the sun line you can see another squirrel out hunting for nuts.  The sunlight is blindingly bright.  You can see the area just to the left of the patio umbrella where I huffed and puffed a few weeks back, got all bit up and bruised and scratched, cleaning out a small pocket of the island so now you can see the fence once again.  Just clearing out that small area (about a third of it's length) has made a positive difference for the flowers and shrubs that are planted in a bed to the right (out of picture range) because of increased sunlight and air flow.  As soon as the weather permits (that is, the dew point is in the mid-50's and the temperature is 75 degrees F or below) I'll work my way in from the other side with loppers and hand pruners, and also clean up the stumps and detrius left behind from my first pruning foray.  A woman's work truly is never done...

Stormy Weather on the Way - I Hope!

Welcome to the world of climate change.  Except for months-long droughts in the summers of 1987 and 1988 (beginning the year after I bought my first house and began seriously planting gardens), my recollection of what summers used to be like in Milwaukee were enough rain, on average, once a week to keep a lawn naturally green with no supplemental watering, a streak of very hot and humid weather at the end of July sometimes stretching into the beginning of August, and the rest generally being in the high 70's to low 80's and temperate.  I was usually full of energy, not enervated by excessively high dew points (back then, the term "dew point" wasn't even used).  As a kid, I remember the Wisconsin climate being even cooler than 25 years ago.

Now, it's a fricking jungle out there in the summertime - and alternating flooding cloudbursts followed by searing weeks of drought are the new "norm."  It's tough on grass, tough on my plantings and trees, and especially tough on me.  I can't take the high dew points.  I wilt worse than lettuce. My energy disappears, my knees continuously ache and even with the AC on at night, I don't sleep well. We haven't had a drop of rain in 3 weeks, since our last local bout of flooding when we got 6 inches of rain in Greenfield (where I live) in less than 48 hours.  Some areas got more, some a little less. 

The temperatures have been high, the sun has been nearly constant since.  My front lawn is parched and turning brown (not to mention the sod web worm damage).  So is everyone else's.  Only a few people are watering.  Since water rates in Milwaukee have increased on average 28%, people aren't watering their lawns anymore.  So the city has managed to cut off its nose to spite its face.  I could have told them this would happen!  People would rather tolerate ugly browned out lawns than pay so much for water when we sit right on top of Lake Michigan.  It is obscenely ridiculous.  I'll bet when the next revenue report comes in usage will have decreased by MORE than the city hoped to make by jacking the average user's water bill into extortion territory.  So then the city will no doubt raise the rate by another 50%.  At that point, my backyard will brown out, too, and say goodbye flowers.  I'm still watering back there, but I won't if the rates increase any higher.

Yesterday was warm/hot but the dew point was hovering around 58 - not very comfortable for me but a far cry from the 68 to 70 that it will creep up to over the next few days.  YECH!  The relief was that it cooled down enough last night to not have to turn the AC on and I could sleep with my windows wide open, being lulled to sleep by the sounds of the night.  I got up about 6:15 a.m., had my coffee, and hit the front yard.  Because of the lack of rain, only the weedy grass grew at all, so I pulled out the electric hand shears and went at it.  The front lawn now looks presentable once again (where it isn't straw colored browned-out) and the edges have been neatly trimmed.  I hosed out the bird baths out back and cut myself a large bouquet of summer flowers.  I took some photos of my furry friends.  Let's see if they turned out:

Here's Grandma Squirrel.  She's very shrewd.  If she can't get my attention
by peering through the screen at the patio door, she climbs up the umbrella
and makes noises until I come to the patio door to throw her a nut!
Here she's munching away on top of a salvaged limb I'm "decomposing" that will
eventually be planted into the gardens as the "horns of the Goddess".  Lots
of leaf drop this year (you can see it piled up on the deck and on the table and chair - despite
sweeping every day) - caused by the new "normal" in rainfall and temperature patterns this spring,
floods, cold, drought, heat, floods again, drought, then excessive rains - and now drought again. 

Here's Ms. Chippy the Chipmunk - I thought I had the "zoom lens" on but guess not. 
She the youngest of a bumper crop of chipmunks this year.  Guess I need to cut back on my feeding.  She's
zeroing in on a hazelnut I threw out for one of the squirrels that missed it!
Squirrel, you've got to be brighter and faster than that - Ms. Chippy is always
hovering around the edges, waiting to pounce on an available nut!

Okay, I'm wasting way too much time doing this, LOL! It's nearly 9:30 a.m. already and the backyard needs a serious cutting. Still tolerably cool in the house but the front yard is now flooded with scorching sun, so I've got to get a move on. I know if I wait until the shade comes round the back yard about 2:30 I won't be in any mood to cut the grass at that point. So it must be now, despite the 10-to-2 window fast approaching. I'd rather burn now than sweat to death later as the dew point continues to rise. Tomorrow will be the worse day thus far of the summer - and with it the threat of severe weather including - I pray for - rain! When I finish up out back I'll shut down the house and turn on the AC.

An Unwelcome Discovery

So I'm outside doing yard work inbetween bouts of resting with my feet up, drinking wine, looking at stuff on the laptop rigged up outside on the deck in the cool, shady part of a perfect weather day.  I have the loppers out and I've been slowly tackling one area after another to clean out unwelcome volunteers and saplings.  I finished the area around the big double tree, which now looks bare compared to what it was before I cleaned out a small pile of burdock and saplings!  You wouldn't know it by looking at it, though.  Anyway, after resting up a bit I aimed for the area around the "arbor" and wandered down in that direction, loppers in hand.  As I bent over to cut down a volunteer sapling I see - a dead bunny.  Oh my.  It's a young one as far as I can tell and I think it may have been a victim of Lady Hawk who visited earlier this morning, but I scared her away when the bird were putting up such a ruckus!  Well, I didn't save poor bunny, who looks like he or she died of puncture wounds from Lady Hawk's claws. 

Now, unfortunately, I have the task of burying the bunny.  I can't leave it just laying out there in my garden and I refuse to put it in the garbage, besides which I don't have "garbage cans" like in the old days; these days nearly everyone in the area puts out large black plastic garbage bags and I'm not going to do that.  So, it's to the mini-cemetery I keep for animals who die in my backyard.  But I have to gird my loins to pull out the shovel and do it.

I would not have made a good pioneer woman, that's for sure.  I would never be able to kill a chicken to save my life, or kill and skin an animal, let alone butcher one!  I lost a favored boy friend in my mid-20's when he discovered one portage/hiking/fishing/camping-out weekend that I did not have the stomach to gut a fish, let alone bait a hook!  Nevermind I caught more fish than he did.  What a schmuck!  I hiked, I camped, I portaged our canoe with him through hill and dale and enjoyed it all.  Built a camp fire, ate beans, fried the fish, made flat bread from scratch and I made some'mores and banana boats for dessert.  Didn't make any difference, I lacked the necessary skills :)  Now I'm so glad I flunked that test!  That happened before I fell in love with chess.  He would never have "tolerated" chess. 

To make myself feel a little better, I took some photos of the squirrels who have been venturing by in the meantime.  The blue jays, cardinals and chipmunks are too fast for me to catch on the camera, even when I try to "set up" the shot by tossing out peanuts, whistling and then waiting, camera in hand! 

Happy squirrel, caught a nut I threw out for her.

This squirrel I managed to get a photo facing toward me.  They are very camera shy.  You can see how shady the
yard gets in the afteroon.  She (or he) was coming toward me for a tempting nut  I was holding up!  Oh my, the grass looks
so green, it's because of all the fertilizer I put down and all the rain we received over the last seven days!

Can you see the bunny?  He (or she) is just to the northwest of the small pile of stuff I cleaned out of another part of yard
with the loppers.  The body of the dead bunny is hidden behind the dwarf hydrangea bush left of center, next to the "horns of the Goddess" (the "Y" forked tree branch.  It was that area I was going to clean out when I found the bunny's body.  Although you can't tell from this photo, there are several "volunteers" growing in this bed that don't belong there.  I don't think I'll
be cleaning them out for a few days yet - but first, I've got to bury the dead bunny.  Sigh. 

Another squirrel, headed toward the other side of the retaining wall by the big double tree.  Yes, I have been working,
you can see the pile of cut discards there.  The grass sure looks tall though, even though I cut it yesterday!

Okay, it's now 5:32 p.m. Enough stalling, I've got to bury the dead bunny.  Here I go - girding my loins all the way...

Hmmm...that gentle rain has turned into a cloudburst!

Downpour and winds, too!  I had to close the patio door because of suddenly overflowing water gushing from the rain gutters above.  The wind is shifting around and started blowing up suddenly, first from the south (first shot taken through the screen door on the front porch), now from the north/northeast (two photos of the backyard taken from the patio door)!  Go figure!  It's lightening up considerably in the west, which means this front will be blowing out of here shortly

Oh, my poor peonies!

Wow - blowing out of here quickly - not even 5 minutes after I took these photos, all is calm outside once more, and a gentle drizzle is falling -- but, just to remind me that it's still a summer thunder storm, a big BOOM just blasted off right above the house, shaking and rattling everything, including my insides!

Wouldn't you know it!

It had been rumbling thunder in the distance since about 7:30 a.m. or so but the sky, while overcast, was still relatively light, and so I engaged in my usual Sunday morning ritual thinking I would have some time to get outside and do some yard work before the rains came:  feed the animals, coffee and cookies while reading the paper at a leisurely pace, check email and respond, water plants.  I got dressed and headed outdoors for more yard work at 9:15 and of course the minute I opened the garage door with Scott's all-in-one seed/mulch bag in my arms, it started raining!  But that was good for the fresh seed/mulch mixture I put down, I have to say.  One bag did not, unfortunately, go very far, but since this is the premium stuff I hope it will sprout relatively quickly and grow in nice and lush!  The lawn out front, where everyone passing by sees it, must be presentable!  Rule Number One of home ownership: no crappy looking front yards allowed!

So, now it's raining a nice steady, gentle rain, good for the grass!  It's rumbling thunder, occasionally a big bangboom, but only a few flashes of lightning that I've seen.  Things seem to be moving slowly to the southeast.  It's dark in the house so I've got some lights on - at 9:45 a.m.!  It is also nice and mild outside and things are very very still out there - almost (dare I say it?) like tornado weather except for the temperature - no extreme heat and no extreme cold front clashing here.  Whew! 

The stillness allows me to keep both front door (sheltered by a small covered front porch) and the patio door off the dinette open to air out the house while the upstairs windows on the north and south of the house are closed.  The west facing windows I can keep open for fresh air because of the deep overhang sheltering them from all but the strongest wind-blown rain. 

Oooh, now the rain is coming down faster, but straight down!  Ooooh, a big lightning flash and crackling thunder rather than the booming kind.  Guess this will be here for awhile.  No more yard work today for moi.

Time to do some laundry...

I Can't Believe It's Saturday

It feels like a Sunday to me because I had a vacation day yesterday.  this is the first of a series of planned 3-day weekends.  It was lovely!  The weather was nice too.  I cut the grass out front; went to lunch with my friend Ann at our favorite Olive Garden, ate too much, then we went shopping, then I came home and cut the grass out back.  Then I rested for several hours on the deck before tackling some pruning chores.

Today it's lovely, but much more humid -- it slows me down considerably not to mention my knees ache in the dampness, and thunder-storms are expected later this afternoon.  Despite rising at my usual time I had a slow start - dinked around at Facebook rather than getting to the Walgreens to pick up a scrip and then get out back to continue the never-ending gardening chores!  Didn't get to Walgreens until 9:15.  I have giant burdock to be dug out and a ton of chopping down and pruning to do.  Well, it will still be there 30 minutes from now...  But I will move - soon - tomorrow is supposed to be yechy so I must get some more yard work in today.

I have made some progress in getting the back yard in shape.  I came across this photo I took on May 22nd, and took this shot of the same area this morning.  All the dandelions are gone, hooray!  I hope you can see other improvements, not to mention that the garden has exploded to overflowing since May 22nd.  It never ceases to amaze me!

May 22, 2011 - weeds, dandelions, empty nut shells and branches and twigs all over!

June 18, 2011 (about 6:30 a.m.) - weeds and dandelions gone, branches and nut shells (mostly) cleaned up.

Much yet to do. Will I ever have the energy and ambition to edge those island flower beds? Oy!

Celebrate the 4th of July, Independence Day!

Today is Independence Day – July 4th. As it does every year on this day, my local newspaper published the full text of the Declaration of Independence. I’m really getting sappy and sentimental in my old age, darlings! Reading it over my morning coffee brought tears to my eyes. This is going to sound more like a paeon to Thanksgiving Day than July 4th, but it’s suitable to think about all the wonderful things that being a citizen of this country affords me.

I am FREE to worship as I please – or not - with no one holding a figurative (or literal) gun to my head to make me practice a particular religion. I am FREE to work in my chosen profession, to have a fulfilling career, and make a decent living at it. I have not been deprived of my right to seek an education, decent housing, vote or work simply because I am a woman. I have not been sexually mutilated simply because I am a woman. I have a loving, healthy family and great friends all around me, and a wonderful man who – despite all warnings to the contrary, loves me very much - and we’re all busy seeking our own particular paths to happiness and fulfillment – being FREE to do so! I have a nice home that I had built just for myself and paid for out of my own wages, and a beautiful yard that I designed and labored over and continue to work on – my gardens are a joy, this is my own little piece of Paradise. Despite unceasing reports of violent crime in the USA I do not own a gun, I have never taken a class in self-defense, and I do not fear to walk down the streets, take public transportation or to go about my daily routine.

I have as much clean water as I need – just by turning the taps, to drink, cook with and to bathe in; I have an excess abundance of foods and products to choose from at the supermarket, I can afford to eat meat and fresh vegetables and drink milk every day, if I wish. I have access to the best medical care in the world and I don’t worry about how I’m going to pay for it. If I want some new clothes or new shoes or a new crock pot, I go out and buy them – no problem – there are thousands of choices I can make just by travelling to the mall a mile away. Or I can simply order things online! It’s hot and muggy here today; with the flick of a switch I turn on central air conditioning and have cool dry air to comfort me; in the winter with the flick of a switch, I have heat.

I am FREE to argue as much or as little (or not at all) as I want about politics, religion, the price of gasoline and property taxes and public education, and I have no fear that I will be thrown in jail because of the views I express (despite George W. Bush’s best efforts and, thank goddess, he’ll be out of office soon).

Well, I could go on and on – but I think you get the point! I am one LUCKY woman. I could have been born in Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, or Ghana. But I was born and raised in the USA – and I have a wonderful life in no small part just because of that fact!

I will never forget one night in Amsterdam, at the end of November, 2001, where I was attending a symposium of chess historians. We had a gala dinner evening and I chatted with attendees to my right, and to my left, and across the table too (we Americans have such bad manners, but they seemed to like me anyway). As the long meal progressed and as more drinks and beer were consumed, conversation loosened. The very nice gentleman to my right, who was a director at the Max Euwe Centrum where the symposium was being held, said I must be very very rich! I said no, not at all, I’m just a middle class person. But, he said, you must be rich, you own your own home – a big home. No, I said, it’s not so big, just about 1,600 square feet. He said, that is a BIG house, and you have three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a driveway and a garage big enough to hold two cars, and a big yard. Well, I said, it’s not all that big, it’s much smaller than average, actually, but I like it. And, he said, you live there all by yourself, shaking his head in disbelief. Yes, I said, that’s correct. You have no idea, he said, how rich you are. But, I said, you have a house too. Yes, he said, I do. It is a townhouse, with houses on either side, that go on block after block. There is no land, you see, for such gardens as you describe. And we do not have a garage, because we do not own a car, although some of the houses have put garages into the basements. But most people will not do that, only the very rich can afford to do that and one has to give up so much living space. Just for a car, no no. Only the very wealthy who own homes out in the country, have such a house and land as you describe, and most of them are not new, but are old, very old. And, until they died a few years ago, our parents shared the house with us, we could not have afforded to buy it otherwise.

Well, I said, I guess I am rich.