Heat Dome

 Well here we are once again. I write to you this Sunday afternoon on my new laptop. It is the closest thing I could find that has the same keyboard layout spacing my my old one. It is more powerful and has more storage, which is good with all of the photos and other work I do on it. 

Heat dome. You read that right. Temperatures have been high with heat indexes for the past week above 100 degrees. To top all of that, for the past 30 days we have received .3 inches of rain, which was 27 days ago. A quick look tells me tomorrow is the only day for the following week the heat index will be below 100. I am not going to complain about storm dumps again. We have been moving the sprinkler every evening; to the garden to the flowers. The yard is pretty much done except for where the septic leach field lines are. This is interesting to us as they are not where we were told they were when we moved in. Originally this precluded us from building a greenhouse where we 'thought' the lines were. Not anymore. Another week of hunkering down inside and listen to the AC unit never shutting off. Electric and water bills going to be high for next few months. 

Ms. TD and myself have watched the first series of This Farming Life and now are on season 5 as Amazon hasn't let out seasons 2-4. Talk about a change of weather. Love to have some of those 60 degree days. Put it this way: my 60 degree day is 15C; today it is 98, to your 36C. You folks want some of this? About done with season 5. We find it interesting and become involved in some ways. We have talked about starting a homestead with our boys as there are a lot of agriculture programs available to new and beginning farmers. And let's face it, Ms. TD and myself aren't spring chickens. But an interesting statistic I read a few days ago was that over 140,000 small farms have shut down in the last 5 years in the US. This statistic should scare a lot of people. We'll continue to look into it but a few of us will still have to work fulltime to make it work. On to the tour (and sorry for no post last week)....

Ms. TD showing our first cherry tomato harvest.

I got all of the tomato plants cut and re- staked. Cucumbers starting to produce pretty good too. A lot of weeding to, which Ms. TD came and gave me a hand because I was already 2 hours into to tomatoes. Maybe not 2 but it felt like it. 

These were from Saturday. This morning I rolled out the plastic/vinyl/whatever it is out, thinking I was going to put the border up. Well that didn't happen as I reworked the front steps as the first step was too high. They are far from perfect but the last ones I put up there. The next person to do them is in for a surprise with all of the concrete under them. I have to do the handrails, post tops and spindles. Paint and stain to finish. 

A hydrangea of various colors.

The flower beds we've managed to keep alive.

The girls posed for a picture Saturday. This is after a run and coop cleanout and meal worms. 

WOF of the Week. Took the pups to the dog park early this morning and got a shot of Tilly in ball catch mode. She loves a ball.

Off to another hot week. They are calling for rain tomorrow but I'm not betting on it. And if it does rain, it will be worse outside. Stay cool....