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 guess thats why it was called 20 mule team borax years ago. That is so neat.

The last time we went to Vegas, we went to Pahrump. That night we went to a show, and the couple we sat with couldn't believe we didn't go to Death Valley. We just kicked ourselves about it. JoanMN/FL

This is one of my favorite things here on the Table ! I love all of the pictures posted so far today ! They put a *Smile* on my face this morning !