As I recall from a summer in AZ, with a toddler, and temps of 125⁰ in the afternoon, the pool was never refreshing even in the morning. More like tepid bath water.

That is awful.

That's sort of what Lars said last week, the pool was not refreshing.

A few days ago it was 113° where we live, and the water temp in our pool was 91.5° - our pool only goes to a 5' depth (so I can walk the whole thing and keep my head above water). The interior of our pool is a black Pebble Sheen. But, the water still felt refreshing because it was 21.5° lower than the outside air temp.

Omg I dont know how you do it. it went up to 101 here yesterday and it felt like a blast furnace. Of course, we have humidity, too.

Hope things cool off soon. We have a few more days of this.

Here's the report from July 5. We had several days over 120°, but yesterday it was 119°. Some of the temperatures have broken records, and so this is not our average weather,

Forecast for today is 122°, but the record is 123°, although average is 108°. Anyway, we have been under extreme heat warning for several weeks now.

I have to do things early in the morning before it gets above 100°. We do go in the pool in the evening, but the pool water is 94 to 95° and feels hot when we get in. If there is no wind, then there is no cooling effect from the water, and so I don't stay in very long. At 7 to 8 AM, the water has cooled to 91°, and I might try swimming at that time, but I would have to do it while the pool is still in the shade.

In general, we have not been going anywhere when the temps are over 120° but it is only 115°, then we can go to the store. Nothing is crowded, since this is the off season, and this year it is very off. We get a lot of TV ads for visiting Canada - Vancouver, Lake Louise, and Banff in particular, and there are non-stop flights from Palm Springs to Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. In the winter, the Canadians come here, and in the summer it is the opposite. Kevin wants to go back to Lake Louise and Banff next summer. I've never been and would love to go, but I think we need to make reservations now.

Thanks for the update, Lars. I hope the heat breaks for you soon. Glad that you have one another and some cool places to go to find an air conditioned xhange of wall..

I bought a huge industrial fan years ago so that I could work in the garden duri g black fly season. It is a huge orange metal fan and we plugged it into an GFCI outlet via a heavy duty extension cord. What if to had auch a fan, away fromany wet surfaces and plugged into a GFCI that could blow on you as you exited the pool? IF you can tolerate the 95° pool water.

It’s probably easier to just stay in the AC.

We are lucky we have power. One neighborhood (a trailer park, I think) lost power last week for 48 hours, and so people had to go to cooling centers.

I am thinking that we might want to get a generator - they have been advertising them on TV a lot recently.

When it is above 120° outside, we can only cool the house to 78°, as that is all the A/C can do, even though I have the thermostat set to 75°. We have a lot of fans as well, and those help.

I have some pepper plants that need to be repotted, but they are going to have to go into huge pots, and I could only do this very early in the morning. Right now I am watering them three or four times a day because the water goes right through the pots. They are in fairly large pots, but I should have put them in even larger pots.

The jade trees that I brought in an outdoor planter are now completely burned up, but the felt plant in the same planter seems to be okay. I have basil plants that are doing well, but I water them three times a day also.

Oh my gosh, Lars!

That is pretty hot. We’re at about 90 f. today and I think that is pretty hot. I always say that one can dress for the weather when it gets cold and enjoy the outdoors, but how do you dress (or undress) for that kind of heat?

Banff is beautiful but very, very busy from May to September. One can no longer drive a private vehicle to Moraine Lake and there is 24 hour a day traffic control everywhere because of the crowds. I was there in February a couple of years ago and Banff town was packed. I'm not trying to turn you off of visiting Banff/ Lake Louise but it has gotten very busy, almost out of control, in recent years. Jasper is only slightly better. Of course the scenery remains stunning.

I hope things cool down for you soon.

I hate extremely hot weather. Lars, 125 is horrendous. I try not to dwell too much on the prospect of the future being even worse.

Stay cool, Lars. You know from past experiences that inland and desert areas can get quite hot in the summer months. Fortunately for you, and for lindsey in Sacramento in the Central Valley, summer heat is most always accompanied by low humidity. Over 100°is still very hot but not as uncomfortable (or dangerous) as comparable temperatures WITH humidity. I've been fortunate that the weather has been mild in my coastal SoCal location for the past few weeks. So far.

If it gets too hot for you, I know of a nice little house for rent where it’s a couple dozen degrees F cooler!

(I got an alert, must have saved it accidentally or something.)

I'm so glad we have a basement. It's pretty consistently in the 60s. I wish we could send some of that cool air up to the second floor! All the cool air drifts down to the basement.

" All the cool air drifts down to the basement. "

That's to be expected. Cool air sinks and hot air rises. Basements are also cooler because they're surrounded and well insulated by soil at a lower temp than the air outside.

Is there a door to the basement you can close?

Yes, we had science in 3rd grade. And we do close the basement door, but of course the cool air goes under it. Doesn’t help that it is a louvered door. We close the bedroom doors to keep as much cool air in there as possible, we adjust the ductwork at the origin to send more cooled air upstairs, etc. It’s still 66° in the basement when it is 74° upstairs. Fortunately, I’m in a cleanout mode so I’m very happy down there with my Netflix, boxes of stuff, a trash can, donation box, and recycling bag, and a mug of hot coffee. and a couple of Hershey Kisses.

FOAS, are you talking about my house in L.A. that is now for rent? The temperature there is 50° cooler than where I am now, but the rent is $5100.00 a month.

The buyers are renting it out?

Lars, don't know if it will help or not but I put straw in all my garden beds to hold in moisture. It really makes a difference in potted plants. Doesn't look great when the plants are small and not filled out yet but it helps here. I lived out West for half my life but didn't garden in pots back then, so not sure it will help in the dryer heat and at temps that high.

Lars, can you get some gauze like fabric to help diffuse the bright hot sunlight on your plants?

Lars, will the pots that the plants are in now go inside of the larger pots into which they are to be planted?

If there are drain holes in the bottom, can you plug them?

How about filling the larger pots with enough water, to hold back the draining that the smaller pots are doing?

If you can't plug the bottom holes in the larger pots, how about putting a garbage bag in first, to hold the water back?

ole joyful

I'll have to check to see if I can put the pots in larger pots. The pots I am using now are decorative glazed pots, and so they would only be able to get the extra water from the bottom, but that might still be helpful. I have large trays under them at the moment, but they evaporate quickly.

It is supposed to be 120° again today but cool down to 110° by Sunday. Low temperature today was 87°, and it gets over 90 by 8 AM, and so I have to do my leaf vacuuming in the patio before 8, when that part of the patio is still in the shade.

IDK if plumber's putty would be safe for plants, if it is non toxic you could maybe use it to plug the holes in the larger pot holding the small pot.

I took my thermometer gun out to the mailbox stand (which is at the street and in front of the house next door) and measured the temperature inside my box - it was 128°, but the top of the mailboxes (there are about 16 of them in all) was 142°. Then I measured the dark sand in my front yard, and it was 163°, which was a bit of a surprise to me.

Lars, come and visit me in England! This morning the temperature in my North facing bedroom was 55F and presumably slightly colder during the night. The radiators keep coming on despite the thermostat being turned down really low. I think we have had two days this Summer when the temp. has risen to the upper 70's and after a very wet Winter and Spring our veggies are looking small and sad. Unripening toms, beans with few flowers and squash and courgettes just sitting and shivering.