I was hoping we'd get some storms from Texas.

Yesterday my plan was to do some weeding, but instead I stayed indoors and cleaned closets. It's so HOT!

How are you Dawn? What's going on in the garden?

We have big plans for this weekend. We already got the landscaping blocks and will claim part of the yard for my new babies that I started in cups. They're doing well on the patio, but I shudder at the thought of these darlings in the ground.

Most dogs will do fine as long as they have shade, cool water, and air movement. On the rare days that there's no breeze, either bring them inside or get a big box fan blowing on them. Long-haired dogs should be trimmed down to about 1-inch, especially double-coated breeds. Heat stroke results more from humidity and lack of air movement than the actual air temperature. It is often fatal in dogs and can kill in just a few minutes.

Dawn said :

"Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink and stay in the shade!

Hey everyone, the party's at Dawns place!!--------------->

Cheers, mines a cold one :-)

Mick

Too funny, Mick! Yes, the heat really gets to me - more this year than ever before. I take a huge cup of water outside with me and am constantly drinking it. Even so, by the time I get inside I'm still half sick.

This morning I got out at 7 a.m. and started watering the front yard, pots, pulling weeds, feeding the black swallowtail cats, etc. I worked until 10 a.m. when it was really starting to get hot. I'm not going anywhere the rest of the day. I have always been sensitive to the heat, even when I was younger and 100 lbs lighter! So, I think some people just are unable to tolerate it at all. I remember going to soccer games in Texas when it was 105 degrees. I had to sit with a cooler of ice and a towel that I dipped into the ice chest and put over my head, in order to cool down even the slightest bit. Maybe I'm just a big baby, but I can tolerate 0 degrees much better than 100.

Susan

Mari,

I've been hoping for the same thing and think it is the humidity streaming up into OK from TX that has brought us the heat advisory (higher humidity = a higher heat index) and the slim chance of rain. Yesterday, Kristine and I were watching the storm on the news and were thinking it'd be nice to be down at the coast watching it rain (not necessarily in the eye of the storm, you know, but from a reasonable distance).

This week, I have neglected the house and garden terribly, as we've been helping some friends up the road tear off the old roof and put a new roof on their house AND build a roof over a lovely wooden deck. We've worked outside from roughly 6:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., come inside during the hottest part of the day, and then been back out from about 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The roof is done, so I'm home today and trying to catch up on housework and yard work. I mowed some earlier, but didn't finish. After I cool off a bit, I'm going to run back out and try to finish the acre nearest the house.

The flowers and garden are holding their own although the week of 100+ temps. has been hard on them. I think the green beans are "done" and am going to yank them out, put some compost in that bed, and then plant fall tomatoes and a new row of beans there.

Celaena,

All my outside dogs are short-haired, but I still am careful with them in this heat. We do keep a fan going on them all the times in the barn/garage. My two old longer-haired dogs have "retired" and stay inside almost all the time. The dogs are my "babies" and all are a little spoiled.

Mick,

Hey, we COULD have a party....there's a fridge in the garage that is full of bottled water, Gatorade, iced tea, juice, bottles of cold Starbucks drinks, juice and beer. How's that for starters????? We spend so much time outside, either working in the yard or at fires, that we make a really serious effort to stay hydrated! (DH has made it his own personal responsibility to see if beer rehydrates a body!)

Susan,

Our DS tolerates the sun and heat about as well as you do. From the time he was a small child, he clearly had less heat tolerance than just about anyone else. If he gets too hot or dehydrated, he is just sick, sick, sick. So, you know, it makes no sense to me that he chose professional firefighting as a career! (He's good at it, and he loves it, but the fact that he does it in spite of his lack of heat tolerance just amazes me.)

Y'all, it is miserably hot here. I need to go back out and mow....but I'd rather be sitting in the shade with a tall glass of iced tea....or a margarita.....in my hand.

Dawn

The salt on the rim of that margarita may be just what you need in this heat (not the alcohol, though). Seems if I eat something salty, or with potassium (bananas) it really helps, with as much as lost fluids (dripping sweat) as I experience.

I constantly drink water if outdoors in the heat. But, we are also losing some electrolytes, too.

Susan

Susan,

Well, of course I'd NEED the salt, but to be honest, I was just thinking how good a margarita would taste. LOL I really don't drink very often--but margaritas are my favorite drink.

When I take Gatorade and water to the firefighters, I always get them to drink 2 bottles of water for every bottle of Gatorade because too much Gatorade can actually dehydrate you. Since most of the firefighters are men, they inevitably ask "Got any beer in that cooler?" and I lecture them on how the DO NOT need beer (laughingly).

In 4 years of taking drinks and food to the firefighters, we've only had one drop to the ground with heat exhaustion--and he WAS drinking and cooling off, but I think he stayed inside the burning building too long before coming out.

Some of the pool lifeguards here add salt to their Gatorade, but I won't let the firefighters do that because it is not a FEMA-approved method of fire rehab (rehab meaning the food and drink you give firefighters to keep them alive and moving).

I have drank so much this week during our roofing work, lawn and garden stuff, and all the mowing, that I feel like my body is 99% water/Gatorade. Really, though, I mowed all day yesterday, with frequent cooling off periods inside the house, and it was a cool and balmy 96 degrees here, which felt HEAVENLY after 4 days of 100+. I kept waiting for it to get hotter, but it never did. Don't get me wrong--it was VERY hot, but just not as hot as the previous 4 days.

Today, I am going to stay inside more and catch up on housework and stuff. I think we are going to be relatively cool again today.....with relatively cool meaning upper 90s versus over 100.

Dawn