Ah, cool water

It's late July. That means heat. Lots of heat.

After a four-hour blueberry-picking marathon yesterday (I started in the morning, broke for lunch, and concluded in the afternoon), Older Daughter proposed a novel idea: To take a couple of lawn chairs and books, and go dangle our feet in a nearby river. I thought that sounded like a splendid idea, so off we went.

We found a spot and set up our chairs.

The river was very calm and beautiful, and the water was juuuust the right temperature: Cool, not cold.

I tried to photograph a fish (the dark shape in the center of the photo) in the lee of a rock, but the pic didn't turn out too well.

I had my camera out, trying to photograph a dragonfly (without much success)...

...when a bald eagle swooped by and landed on a sandbar some distance away.

It stayed on the shore for a good fifteen minutes. Once in a while it took a sip of water from the river, but otherwise it just sat there.

Finally it heaved itself into the air...

...and took off down the river.

We came home feeling enormously refreshed after the day's heat. Ah, cool water. What a concept.

Heat wave

Whee. I just saw an article entitled "Extreme heat wave bound for Phoenix and Southwest could be worst ever."

It seems brutal heat is moving in, including parts of California. Why does this affect us here in North Idaho? Because I am, literally, about to drive directly into it.

Yes, Older Daughter and I are renting a car and leaving tomorrow morning for a road trip to visit my parents in Southern California. We're spending tomorrow night in Reno and then driving the remaining distance to my parents' house on Monday.

On the return trip, however, we're crossing over and spending the night in Las Vegas where's it's slated to be, I kid you not, 114F. Whee.

And why, you may ask, would we brave oven-like temperatures like that to stay in Las Vegas? Well, outside of a curiosity to see Sin City, I'm scheduled to meet my literary agent for dinner. I warned him I might melt into a puddle. (I don't do well in heat.)

So we'll be on the road for the next ten days or so, including through a heat wave. Oh well, it's worth it to see my folks.

A break from the heat

It has been a difficult summer.

It has been so achingly, bakingly hot for weeks on end. I don't do well in heat.

I'm eternally grateful to the people we bought this house from, because they left behind an air conditioner. We've been using it daily.

We haven't had an air conditioner in nearly 30 years. I grow weary of the din it makes and it fills me with guilt to use it (go figure), but it's made this summer tolerable and we thank God for it.

The heat has also put the kibosh on many of the outdoor projects we'd hoped to accomplish this summer. If readers wonder why I haven't posted more DIY projects posts, that's why. We have to keep reminding ourselves to be patient.

But this week we anticipated a break in the weather.

Rain! A chance at rain!

As the heat continued (that 107F temp took place last Friday), we monitored the weather like crazy people, praying we would get some of this celestial largess.

Older Daughter came up for a visit on Saturday, and that evening we took Mr. Darcy for a walk after sunset. It was hot, smoky (from wildfires), and insanely humid. Except for the smoke, Older Daughter said it reminded her of the sauna-like summers in New Jersey, where she worked for four years as a nanny.

Sunday morning dawned, if anything, even more humid. We don't normally get humidity like this. The west is known for its dry heat, not its humid heat.

Sunday's weather report kept teasing us with imminent moisture....

....and then backing down. Storms cells kept dodging around us. It wasn't until late afternoon that we hit the jackpot. And what a jackpot it was!

Don and I sat out on the deck and just reveled in the sounds and smells of the rain. The temperatures also dropped into the high 70s. We were able to turn off the air conditioner and open up the house.

Here's roof runoff coming out of the gutter downspout.

We had what I call a "string of pearls" – a line of individual storm cells passing over. The first one passed, leaving puddles in the driveway....

...and then another one headed our way. We leashed up Mr. Darcy, took umbrellas, and walked him in the pounding rain. It was lovely.

Even better, we learned a nearby wildfire got over an inch of rain dumped on it. Woot!

This morning it's still very humid, and unsurprisingly we had fog everywhere.

During our morning walk, Mr. Darcy left footprints on the gravel road.

The roadside grasses were still bent over from the deluge...

...and all the plants looked newly washed and grateful.

Even the funnel spider webs looked cleaner.

Mr. Darcy took advantage of puddles, because of course water in road puddles tastes so much better than the clean fresh water in his bowl at home.

We have a few more hot days ahead of us, and then temps are slated to drop into the 70s.

At last.

Frumpkin and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad fan

Some of you may remember Older Daughter's cat, Frumpkin.

 

Poor Frumpkin has been feeling the heat, just like everyone else during this vicious heat wave. He has such incredibly thick fur, you see, and since he's now an indoor cat, he hasn't been shedding like he used to. I don't know about you, but the last thing I'd want to do in a heat wave is wear a heavy fur coat.

Older Daughter doesn't have air conditioning, but fortunately her little apartment is half-built into a hillside, so she gets the benefit of earth-berm insulation both winter and summer. (The disadvantage is high humidity. We gave her a de-humidifier for Christmas, and it empties about a quart of water per day from the air.) 

So, since fans are now scarce everywhere, Older Daughter is getting by on what she calls the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad fan (a small desk unit). She placed this on the floor, and Frumpkin basically hasn't moved from it in days. (You can see it at the top center of the photo.)

Older Daughter says the temp inside her apartment hasn't gone above 80F, which is pretty durned good for not having air conditioning when it's 107F outside. She's also been sleeping on the floor alongside Frumpkin, parked in front of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad fan.

Terrible/horrible or not, a fan is a fan, and she's grateful to have it. Everyone will be glad when this heat breaks.

Preparing for hell

As with the rest of Western America, we've been bracing ourselves for hell. Or at least, temperatures that approach it.

We've watched this coming for the last week. Whatever the west coast is experiencing, we can expect it a few days later.

Unfortunately we've learned the temperatures at our place are a few degrees higher than the nearest weather station. Wheee.

So we've spent the last week making sure we won't die of heat stress.

The most wonderful thing is the people we bought this house from actually left behind – can you believe it? – a window air conditioner. Don tested it and by golly it works. I have no idea why they left it behind, but God bless them for it.

Don built a stand for it.

He also built a frame with a double layer of plastic to fit into the window frame over the unit.

When the afternoon sun comes in through the window, we close the curtain and prop the rolled up curtain over the air conditioner with a roll of duct tape and some dog bones. Hey, redneck solutions.

I always feel guilty using an air conditioner, don't ask me why. However this heat wave is a doozy, and the inside of the house resembles an oven when things get hot.

I decided to keep us well supplied with Utterly Artificial Ice Cream, one of our favorites. (See this post for the recipe.)

Unfortunately our ice cream maker chose this time to give up the ghost...

...so I ended up just using a mixer to mix the ingredients for the ice cream, then freezing it. Turned out pretty well.

I've also been making ice cubes like crazy. Don't want to get caught short.

Most of what the ice cubes go into is sun tea. That's another thing we've been making like crazy – decaf sun tea. We go through about a gallon a day.

All outside chores get done very early. I've been watering the plants and walking Mr. Darcy around 6 am.

Lihn stays cool by taking baths.

After a good soaking, she can spend the next hour or two happily preening the water from her feathers.

Interestingly, in the midst of these preps for a heat wave, we had an unexpected thunderstorm cell pass over us (a few days ago).

We weren't expecting this, but we had no complaints! It dropped the temperature from 97F down to 70F within minutes. It was glorious.

It was also accompanied by huge 30 mph wind gusts that knocked over potted plants and tore branches off the trees.

In fact, one of the weeping willows lost a huge branch, but it's so tangled up in the tree we haven't yet taken it down (and it's been too hot outside to mess with it).

This little storm cell left behind some beautiful evening clouds which bathed the whole landscape in a gorgeous orange light.

Some deer grazing nearby seemed to enjoy the brief respite from the heat.

But that beautiful rainstorm was last week, and this week we're paying the piper in terms of heat. The news has been full of stories of hellish temperatures various places of hit, with some places seeing as high as 118F. In the northwest, no less! 

I know our church's basement is open as a cooling center for those who need it. Here at our new place, yesterday's temp reached 107F outside, and 80F inside. (Without the air conditioner, it would have been, well, 107F inside. Maybe a few degrees cooler.)

As I post this (2 pm), it's currently 106F and slated to go higher. I'll post whatever it tops out.

Update: We topped out at 109F. The thermometer briefly registered 111F, but it backed down from that within a few minutes. This was the hottest day. Things are supposed to get moderately cooler – say, the high 90s – starting later in the week.

Meanwhile, how is everyone doing during this week of hellish temperatures?