Suzie, Isn't it aggravating when you water and THEN it rains? It happened to us last week. I was sure all that heavy rain would miss us, so I watered. That night and the next morning, 2.5" of rain fell. From the way my garden looks now, though, you can't tell that I watered or that it rained. Y'all keep having incredibly high heat indexes and humidity up there, though our RHs and HIs aren't that high here even though our temps are. We hit 99 degrees yesterday, but I think the highest heat index I saw was 103 but for some reason it felt much worse than other days with a similar HI had felt. I think it felt just miserable from about 10 a.m. until 8 p.m., and suddenly if felt so much better after the sun went down. We took the dogs for a swim in the creek and two ponds that still have water just before sundown so the dogs could cool off. Actually, they were only supposed to swim in one pond, but the youngest one decided to swim in the small lily pond and came out of it with a water lily in her mouth. It was pretty hysterical and she looked scared, like 'Please, don't yell at me". I couldn't yell at her, 'cause I was too busy laughing. I don't know the last time we had the high humidity/high HI's for so many days without a break in this state. DS is a firefighter and when they aren't fighting fires, they're training constantly. They had a Haz-Mat training the other day and the guys wearing the hazardous materials containment suits, which are heavy and impenetrable, had to wear 'cool vests' underneath their Haz-Mat suits. That made me think that we all need cool vests for ourselves so we can work in our gardens! Now, that's an idea. A cool vest is a vest with pouches filled with coolant? How could that be a bad idea. I'm going to find a photo of one and link it. Why doesn't somebody make one of these for gardeners? (I do wear a cool banadana around my neck at some fires and sometimes when working outside, but it cools a relatively small part of one's body.) I found and linked a website that has cool vests for real people. (The ones for firefighters are a lot more expensive.) And, in case you're wondering who'd spend the money for one of these....well, I probably wouldn't, but I have an acquaintance with multiple sclerosis who used to live in our neighborhood and who wears one at times because her body doesn't cool properly, or she has a flare-up of the MS if she get too hot or something like that. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Cool Vests

Well, after 107 here in the Owasso area, we had a nice cool front move through about 10am today. It knocked the temps down to 74, which is such a blessing. I know it won't last, so I'm heading out to get some yard stuff done while its cool E

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

Melissia, It is discouraging to walk out the door at 6 a.m. to temperatures around 80 degrees, isn't it? I was out for about an hour but just couldn't make myself stay out any later. The evenings feel better to me since the humidity is lower, but they are reserved for wading pool time with Maddie, who is 2 years old. I'm not sure when I'll manage to get anything done in the garden the next couple of weeks, but I'm not going to miss out on my wading pool time. LOL I was thinking last night that I wished I could work out in the garden overnight, but of course, that would be insane in a remote rural area with loads of wildlife. At this point, it is all about staying cool. I have tomatoes dehydrating in the oven and a pot of them boiling on the stove, so at least the house smells pretty good. Dawn