Jeanie, I fully agree that this is a horrible year. My pastures are all crunchy and we're going to be faced with buying feed. I imagine the market for livestock is going to bottom out pretty soon, when ranchers have to begin to feed them to keep them alive because the grazing is all gone. I never thought I'd wish for a western-style wheel irrigation system, but this year is enough to bring it to mind. Our well seems to be holding up so far, but I'm nervous about it. I can't risk running it dry by watering lawns and pasture except in an emergency. The Rose of Sharon is all sparse and shriveled looking, half its normal size, and I'm afraid I've lost one young maple tree completely. The hydrangeas are still alive, but I'm afraid they are so stressed that they won't come back until next year. Yesterday they were all but lying flat on the ground. The young lilacs seem to be hanging in there, and the wild polyantha roses seem to be okay, but the tea roses are a mess. The hibiscus are not happy campers and seem to have quit blooming as well as being limp. I completely lost the annual dahlias, and may have lost all the young perennial baby's breath I set out recently. It's usually pretty drought tolerant, but the root systems were not large enough to make it through this heat, in spite of watering, Even the zonal geraniums have quit blooming. I just came in from watering the cantaloupe, which I hate to do in the middle of the day, but it was so limp that I had to do something. I have a soaker running in the wilted strawberry bed while I'm writing this. Even the leaves on the pepper plants are hanging limp. Someone mentioned that this La Nina effect can go on for another year? I swear, next year I'm going to put in the veggie garden in western raised hill and trench style, so I can flood irrigate; start the water at one end and let it flow to the other. I already have a big V-shaped hoe, so it makes the job fast and easy. I can only hope that deep watering every few days will make the roots go deeper and be more effective. I've used the method in west coast areas that have summers like this every year, so I can only hope. It's infinitely cheaper than buying enough soaker hose to do the job, and putting in a drip system for the veggies is out of the question. I may even put in modest trenches around the roses so I can really soak them. I agree that it's way too hot to stay out there for very long. I've hit a point where I only go out and do minimal weeding and enough watering to try to keep things alive. If I didn't already have a drip system in my flower bed, I don't know what I'd do. Lose a whole big bunch of plants, probably. Pat

I haven't tried using cardboard. I've used the heavy paper feed sacks from the livestock feed, and they work for a while. When I use heavy layers of newspaper and wet it all down as I put it in place, it works really well. The problem is that, in every tiny area that is not covered, the weeds are flourishing. Naturally, I can't put anything right up around the stalks of the plants or they can't breathe. And keep in mind that this is the first year we've tilled and used this particular area for gardening, so it's going to take a lot longer to get it under control. It probably needs a tractor to plow and cultivate it in the spring, and we don't have one. A standard tiller only does a very marginal job of breaking it up. I have such a weed problem here that I ordered professional grade weed fabric from DeWitt and installed it in the big flower bed, topped with gravel. It took about 90 days before the weeds seeded over the top, sprouted and then grew down through it. I called DeWitt about it and they said "What?!" I mailed them some photos and a sample of the cloth with the grass roots growing through it so they could see the problem. They just sent me a roll of heavy-duty industrial grade stuff that is used by engineers, and said if this doesn't work, then they don't know what to tell me. We'll see. Jo, I know what you mean about a raised bed draining fast. I used one for my strawberries this year. It was in pretty good shape until it turned hot. Now I have to deep soak it every other day to keep the plants alive. It seems to take more water than the cantaloupe that are planted in the ground outside the box. The melons are mulched and the berries are not, which does make a big difference. By next year, the berries should have spread out to cover the whole bed, but in the spots where it's already done that, they still seem to be drying out pretty fast. Since we're on a well, we don't have a water bill per se. But, what it does to the electric bill is not pretty. The bill jumped up $120 this month compared to what it normally is in the summer. I think the highest summer bill I've ever seen here was $240 and this time it was $360. Sticker shock indeed! Pat

Jerry: Our local paper has a great story about Death Hollow in Utah, today! Three guys took it upon themselves to hike into the hollow! What troubles befell them--hiking in and swimming in ice cold water, rappelling down the canyon walls! They hiked as far as they could, in the canyon, but the deepening, icy cold water told them they'd better get back out and come another day! There is also a half-page picture of one of the guys rappeling down the canyon wall! WOW! What a great place to visit, albeit, by way of newspaper articles. How i'd like to go there, but, with advancing age, and gasoline prices being what they are, I'll have to stick to reading about it! Another man took a trip to the Valley of The Gods! He traveled by way of Utah Rt. 261, known locally as the Trail of The Ancients! He says all was going well, until he came to the road that had been dug out to haul uranium back in the 1950's. It runs from Cedar Mesa down into the canyon. He reports there is a bed and breakfast in the area where he stayed. So, have an enjoyable summer, traveling amongst the Mesa's and Buttes! As for me, I'll stay in our beautiful mountains and flat lands of Pennsylvania, where the flowers grow, and the Bluegrass music flows! Have fun: Rusty Jones

I am so amazed by all these photos, stuff I have never seen before, not even in pictures.