They said they were seeing a few 90's in Texas a few posts above.....well Oklahoma has now also seen their first 90's this last weekend as well. So the warming trend is moving north. I have some trees stuck up north waiting on a truck and I expressed my concewrns to the grower that I was getting past my comfort zone on planting time for conifers. Like most folks in the north he told me not to worry because the trees were still dormant due to the cold weather they were still in. What I try to get most northerners to realize is it's the shock factor that worries us.......not just the fact this tree will have to endure so much more heat that it has been used to throughout the summer, but nothing turns a tree into a crispy critter faster than for it to come from nice cool cloudy growing conditions and drop it right in the middle of a heat wave of 90 - 100 degree temps and full sun. mark

Ilene, Our worst predators for the young keats and chicks are chicken snakes and rat snakes. They are persistent and will work and work and work to get into the guinea house and/or brooder. In previous years, we have lost most of a year's "crop" of keats to snakes or even all of them. This year they are in a cage made of 1/4 inch hardware cloth, and I still am not sure the doors cannot be breached, but we'll work on that today. Sometimes a persistent snake puts itself across the door to the guinea coop like a "bar" across the door so I cannot open the door without letting the snake in. (I don't open the door, but it takes a while to get the snake to go away.) DH and I am in constant (gentle) conflict over the rat snakes and chicken snakes. I want him to shoot every one that gets into the guinea house or hen house while we have keats or chicks. He doesn't want to. I have to convince him that the darned things are going to keep coming back until they have eaten every baby bird we have. Who is right? Of course I am. If you don't kill those predator snakes they will eat every single baby, and have done it over and over again, so he might as well be ready for them. I am thinking about buying a bag of sulphur and putting a band of it around the guinea coop to help repel the snakes. A lot of people swear by it, but I am not sure it helps. Still, it might be worth a try. I checked on the keats every couple of hours today. One died. It was very small and I couldn't get it to eat or drink. (You have to dip their beak in water to "teach" them to drink, and most drink water as soon as you do it. This one wouldn't.) I knew it probably wouldn't make it. So, from 20 to 19 in the first day. It makes me wish we'd bought 25 or 30. Guineas are the best garden helpers, so it is worth the effort to raise a new batch. My three adult males are baffled by the sudden appearance of babies. LOL Carol, I so admire the charity work you do. It sounds like such a wonderful project, making clothing for the needy. We live with such abundance in the country, and how often does one of us complain "I have nothing to wear!" when we have closets and dresser drawers full of clothing? It is humbling to think of people who truly have nothing to wear. Now that the heat is cranking up, I find it harder and harder to spend a lot of time outside. I like to go out as early in the day as possible--often just at sunrise, and then come in during the worst of the heat, and then...back out to the garden after 3 or 4 p.m. or so....I can work in the somewhat shady northeast corner of the garden in shade from about 3 p.m. on. I often stay out until dark. I start putting up tools, etc. while it is still daylight, but by the time I put all the birds in their coops, feed them, let the dogs out of the "dog yard" to run and play before they go into the garage for the night, put cats inside so the coyotes and bobcats won't get them, etc.......well, it is usually after 9 or 9:30 p.m. before I get inside. I often skip dinner because I am too tired to cook. Then (like tonight/this morning) I wake up when DH gets in from work between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., and then I get up an eat a bowl of cereal or something else simple. On DH's days off, I keep to a more regular schedule and either he or I or both of us make dinner on those nights and I am usually in before dinner. He also helps with the evening animal chores. Once the big harvest of tomatoes, onions, potatoes, beans, corn, etc. kicks in, I like to harvest early in the day. Then, during the heat of the day I can be processing the veggies and freezing, canning or drying as desired. Storms to our west tonight, but they all stayed west of us and missed us again. When the weather radio went off tonight, it was for the county to our west--Jefferson County. It stayed clear, dry and warm here--is currently 79 degrees outside with a heat index of 85 at 2 a.m. No wonder it feels like it never cools off! Dawn

My yard is now semi-dry with some of the lowest areas still holding a few inches of water. The tropical desert island is no longer an island its just a plain old dirt mound again. One of the positives of all the rain is my Valemcia Pride tree is starting to put out buds and blooms. My little 2 foot high whipstick Rosigold tree has about 4-5 branches coming right out of the top that now look like they may be buds and not branches. Its the little tree that thought it could...but its so small it will have to wait until next year though. My new Graham tree just put out several nice buds, its big enough that I'll see if it holds a few fruit. The small Carrie tree is budding the best but once the fruit form I'm going to take them off it and let the tree mature another year before it fruits. My Angie looks like its putting out a few buds and its big enough that I'm going to wait and see what happens with it. My Pickering tree seems to be doing a lot of nothing so far. The Neelum tree is still surrounded by its own water moat so I'm not exactly sure what its doing and the Tebow tree is still a whipstick although it has a few new bumps forming up top.

ugh, I live right on the coast of Northern Cal and once it warms up inland it will be foggy here all day every day for the most part. Does cut down on the need to water as the trees and shrubs do a good job of capturing the moisture and channeling it to their root zones, but it can be oppressive especially after a rainier than usual year. NOT COMPLAINING, just explaining! Have been plenty of rain and showers in the forecast this past week but not much action on the coast besides that thunderstorm the beginning of the week which was one of the noisiest I have heard. A friend was driving to Sacramento during the worst of it and he was exhausted by the time they arrived, but so amped he could not sleep.