LOL... :).

I heard yesterday that the east coast isn't going to get a summer at all! Much cooler temps than normal. Maybe we should just move... :).

We got lucky with yesterday's rains. Down further in Hot Springs, they had wind damage and hail. We just had a lovely, misty rain and COOLER temps. It's 78 right now... don't you just hate me? :) My plants are loving this! I got my first hot pepper today! YAY!!!

Beth

Beth,

No, I don't hate you, never could and never would. : ) I'm glad the bad storms missed y'all. I was watching the radar and wondering who was getting hit by the bad storms.

However, am I envious of your current pleasant temperatures? YES!

If we moved to the East Coast, and especially the relatively cool-summer Northeastern U. S. though, we'd have to get used to dealing with a last freeze date around Memorial Day and a first fall freeze in September. So, I don't know if I'd give up the longer gardening season in order to have the cooler weather.

Once, we were visiting my in-laws in Pennsylvania in late June/early July, and we drove to Niagra Falls for the Fourth of July. It was cold! (Not just on the fourth, but the whole ten or twelves days we were there!) Misty, foggy, rainy, with highs in the 70s. I just kept thinking that if we were home it would be bright and sunny and 95ish. Of course, it was very pleasant outside, but it sure didn't feel like or look like summer.

Congrats on the first hot pepper! I hope it is the first of a plentiful and prolonged harvest.

Dawn

P.S. I came in to cool off again. It seems like it takes 30 minutes of cooling off inside before I can go back outside and roast for 30 minutes. I believe the current temperature is 90 degrees here, and the heat index is "only" 95 because the hunidity has dropped from 96% to 66% since I first went out this morning.

Ladies

I agree with you, but I would like to through my 2 cents worth in. I have had the chance to travel from the the Arctic Circle to the Tropic of Cancer, from east coast to west coast. I lived 4 months in Alaska, sleeping in the back of my pickup. I spent a month in Mexico, some of the time sleeping, or atleast trying to sleep in the back of my pickup.

There are many places that are pretty, and nice to visit, but when you factor in all the variables we are in about as good a place as any.

If I were rich I would own homes in many parts of the contry. and travel to each. But I expect that would get old also.

Larry

I'm with you, Dawn. I can take the heat but the humidity makes me whine like there's no tomorrow. I lived in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and SoCal for a while -- those places are ovens if you go solely by temps. But I enjoyed them and loved being outdoors. Here, with the humidity? I'm much wimpier. Oh, how I wish we had air conditioning!!

Beth, congrats on the pepper! My boys are making salsa right now with some chiles they just picked from the garden. They're treating me to homemade salsa chicken wraps for lunch. Yum!

Diane

Dawn,
OH, give us time... we'll be hot and sticky before long. I am just enjoying the heck out of the temps right now tho. Making it so much easier to do my outside stuff. In my part of the country, it's ALWAYS the humidity. We have rain often and high temps. Plus, being surrounded by rice fields makes it skeeter time ALL THE TIME. Amazingly enough, I haven't had troubles with the skeeters YET. Making me wonder what happened to them... LOL!

Larry,
I TOTALLY agree with you. Even tho I haven't been out of my tri state area very much, I really like it here! I get the best of Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee. :)

Diane,
Salsa allready! COLOR ME JEALOUS! And your boys are making it FOR YOU? You got 'em trained up PROPER. LOL! We've only got one room in our house with ac/heating unit, have window units in the back of the house. We stay here in the den a whole lot... :).

Further thought, I am waking up a whole lot earlier to enjoy the cooler temps outside. Since my garden is so small, I'm thinking about installing a flood light out by the garden to do some night gardening myself! Just me and my kittens... lol!

Ya'll have a good one! STAY COOL! :)

Beth

Larry,

I know. If you look at it overall, we're not that bad off---at least we have relativey mild and brief winters, long springs (even if cool nights hang on forever), beautiful autumns that also can be very long if the first freeze is somewhat later than average and gorgeous, sunny summers. I just wish the summer heat wasn't always so extreme.

I like August better than June, though, because even though our temps here often exceed 100 degrees for most the month, by then we are very dry and humidity is very low and it just doesn't feel as bad as it felt at 85 or 90 degrees in June.

Diane, What a difference the humidity makes! I'm not longing for drought to return (it will return soon enough on its' own), but at least when we have drought we have very low humidity, so the heat doesn't feel as bad.

You need air conditioning! There's not much I consider absolutely essential, but A/C is on the list!

How lovely that the boys are making salsa. Lunch sounds delicious too. You're making me hungry......so, as soon as I cool off from the latest stint outdoors (I stayed out an hour this time!), I'm going to make some lunch.

I think I am through with the garden until about sunset. The heat index here is now 99-103 depending on whose numbers you use/believe. That's hot enough for me to decide I belong inside in the A/C.

Wicked weather may kick up somewhere over OK or north Texas late this afternoon. The garden and I would love a rain shower, minus the possible hail, high wind, etc.

Dawn

Larry, I agree. I grew up in NJ and have gardened in NJ, IN, IL, TX, OK, OH and two states in Mexico. In spite of the challenges I like Oklahoma best. Though, not all of that is due to our weather.

I am just about to start evening chores. I had decided to cultivate (by mattock) a pretty good sized area in a garden here. The soil conditions are perfect. But the air temps are awful! I came in, totally soaked with sweat and feeling a bit queazy. Now, after about 40 minutes in the cool, and drinking about 2 quarts of liquid, I think I can just change by shirt and grab a new sweat rag and head out again!

I can see that our sweet potatoes are loving this weather. I still have to get half of them in.

Dawn: I haven't thought of a bio dome. But I often day dream about an air conditioned gardening suit.

George
Tahlequah, OK

In spite of all my whining about the heat, I have been outside about 30 minutes of every hour since lunchtime. It is hot! Highest heat index I saw was 109 and highest temperature was 96.

George, I can relate to being totally soaked with sweat and feeling the tiniest bit ill. I have been drinking water, Gatorade and tea so I think I've managed to stay hydrated at least. You're tougher than I am. It is too hot for me to even lift a mattock, but I have been wielding lopping shears, pruners and a trowel. Sissy-girl work--that's all I do in extreme heat.

I think I am in for the evening now. I brought the three outdoor dogs inside to cool off and I can't leave them alone inside the house for fear they'll eat the couch or something. So, we're going to chill, cool down, enjoy the AC and keep an eye on the radar and the nasty storms in Texas that are moving into western OK. The dogs are actually pretty well-behaved, and they've been in the garage all afternoon with a huge industrial-sized fan blowing on them, but when they come inside, they all think they are lap dogs, and since they weigh from about 75 lbs. to about 130 lbs., I don't want them on my lap!

George, I think you are more likely to have an air-conditioned gardening suit (they make something like that now for cooling down firefighters and athletes) than I am to have a climate-controlled Bio-Dome. But, if I am going to dream, I'm gonna dream big!

Dawn