Im watering every day to keep my pots alive. HOpe it works. Lots of work but will be worth it if they live. Judy

Doing the same thing, Mo, doing chores early--and late. gardens mulched heavy, i mean real heavy, and plants are doing ok, with minimal watering--but the tomatoes are cooking right on the vine, ditto cucumbers and squash.
about twice a year, on the farm, you switch into what i call survival mode--summer heat like this, and winter when temps go the other way. you disturb the animals as little as possible, other than making sure everyone has fresh water, and feed. and--keeping hubby down, he's not supposed to take much sun after his radiation treatments.
this does remind me of back about 1954--55-and 56 when i lived in a old, uninsulated house, had a very fat baby-and no air-conditioning. i'd lay her on the kitchen floor, in front of a fan, with a pan of ice behind the fan. hey--you do what you have to do!!
everyone be careful in this heat--

Ceresone, you expressed it well...I hadn't thought of it that way. We do have those times on the farm where you just simply mark time until the weather is better!

I go out early, set up the waterer for yet another part of the garden. DH, does his cattle check....he isn't supposed to be out working or walking or exercising in anything over mid-80's since his heart attack. He also sees to the (4) cats and (1) dog. We aren't mowing any weeds in the fields any more. A neighbor mentioned how her husband had started a field fire many years ago when dry grass clogged around the tractor's exhaust! We are definitely just waiting.......

The flower beds that I am watering seem to be holding on, but I think the veggie garden is not doing too well. It remains to be see if the corn makes anything.

WE NEED RAIN!!!! I really should just quit talking about it.

gld

Boy,it has been hot. Horses and donkey,stay in the shed most of the day.They've eaten the bottom pasture bare so I'm having to feed hay which is getting hard to come by.Hubby wants to get rolled hay but I refuse to feed it to them after oldest mare got a bad case of obstruction after eating rolled hay and I'd rather feed burmuda hay rather than have a high vet bill to make a horse poop.Can't turn them out on the small top pasture 'cause there's no place for them to get out of the heat.

Chickens are barely laying.

Early garden frying in the sun so I'm pulling it up and tossing it to the geese and ducks. As soon as it's cleared,I'll cover it with black plastic to solarize it,till and plant area in fall crops that's been covered in plastic since early spring.

I have hose/sprinklers permnantly attached to my hand,dragging them around the yard(greenest yard in the neighborhood)daily but still the curb-side beds look fried.

No business in the greenhouses since nobody gardens in this heat but still have to get out there at daybreak and water them every day.

PP

We were so excited to see some real thunderheads to the south yesterday afternoon. Areas south of the river (we're in Callaway, the county just north of Jefferson City) got some rain with the clouds overspreading us. That shade
dropped the temperature about 20o in a matter of minutes. How wonderful it felt! I am glad someone got rain. Maybe next time it will be our place that gets watered.

This time of the year, I always worry about natural cover fires. Fortunately, we got all the hay cut and baled before everything dried to a tinder around our place to at least reduce the amount of grass to burn. The first year we were here, a neighbor lost a tractor and set a field on fire while he was baling hay. The fire dept. got it extinguished before any real damage was done. At least we got through Independence Day without the private use of fireworks starting any fires.

According to the weather forecast, we have one more day of triple digit temps before some moderation and hopefully rain next week. Fingers, toes, eyes crossed that this is so.

On Friday, the indoor/outdoor digital thermometer recorded a high temp of 105.5, 102.4 yesterday. That's with the sensor in the shade on the north side of the house. We got a break yesterday because one of those pop-up thunderstorms formed mid-afternoon and cooled everything off... they missed us Friday. It dropped less than a quarter inch of rain, but that's more than we've had in the past month.

The goats (Boers) love hot, dry weather and aren't bothered by this at all. Instead of laying around under the shade trees, they wait until 2pm to go on a walkabout. They don't like grass, so the pasture is in good shape even if it is crispy. At least the legumes had a chance to go to seed before they shriveled up.

I'm glad I don't still have sheep. They'd have the pasture looking like a golf course by now, and be utterly miserable too. Endophyte fescue used to bother them in this kind of weather.

Because of the drought I've been watering a lot, so the trees, shrubs, vegetables, and berries look better than they usually do in summer. I lost several apple trees, two pears, a cherry, peaches, a mulberry, and a walnut in 2000 or so because of 3 years of drought, and they were all mature, well-rooted trees, some quite old. Now I'm more mindful of getting water down to their roots regularly.

A neighbor's pasture burned Friday afternoon. It looks like it started in a roadside ditch, so you can't help but wonder if some fool tossed a cigarette butt out a car window. When people heard the volunteer fire dept siren they came running to help put it out. Since it started at the bottom of the hills, out of sight of any homes, and there was a little breeze, half of 160 acres was gone by the time we got there. In the end, two thirds was burned off and it was fully stocked with cow/calf pairs. Unfortunately, the owner, who doesn't live nearby, decided this was a good time to bulldoze and pile up old stumps and tree trunks to make a nice slow-burning pile to poison us with a pall of acrid smoke for days. There's still a haze of smoke hanging over the house and yard right now. People who don't get burn piles burned off quickly are my least favorite thing about living in the Ozarks.

I well remember the heat in 1954. I had a 6 month old that July with no air conditioning...saw my first water cooler in 1958 in Southern Oklahoma. Of course they don't work well where it's already humid.

My car thermometer registered 107 as I was leaving Springfield yesterday late afternoon...by the time I reached Republic it had dropped 18 degrees. I never did see any rain, but thought I could smell it. Air was full of dust for a bit, and then I noticed the temp drop.

We recorded 104.6 down here on Table Rock Lake Friday afternoon. We have had rain along the AR border, but it's going fast now. Yard is drying up. We have some hair sheep to keep the pasture down, but they had already shed their wool/hair...it's kind of hard to tell the difference as they don't all have the same thing. I guess it's hair if it falls out. Our pasture is mixed with woods, so they can take their pick of shade and browse or sun and grass.

Chores early and later around 6 p.m. until dark. Very opressive heat! My oriental lillies have fried in the sun as well as one of my Jane Magnolias. NW Arkansas got rain on Saturday! It poured for about an hour. I was finally able to till an area I will be planting a large Iris order in. Seems the rain went into the ground about an inch deep because past that point it was bone dry! I'm glad for the rain, but need LOTS MORE of it! It got into the triple digits Saturday and dropped into the 70's after the rain. What a temperature drop! Looks like maybe some relief coming in on Wednesday! I'll keep praying for rain and until then I'll keep my fingers crossed!
Nancy U

I worry about grass fires too. We have hayfields around our house. I haven't watered our yard at all and the grass looks dead in spots. Maybe the weeds will die too. lol
I think I'll just plan to reseed this fall. It looks like I've waited too long to water it now.
Numama - I'm jealous of that rain but I think you're right. It's not enough in this heat. We need cooler temperatures to go with it. I'd like to see photos of your flowers. Maybe you can post some someday. Will all those iris that you're going to plant bloom next year? Won't that be pretty!

We had 3 days of rain a week ago but since we're in a drought,it was only a temporary relief...need more...lots more.

We were toned out about 9 days ago for grass fire started by someone flicking a cig. out as they drove down the road.Several tone-outs for older folks w/ heat exhaustion.

Drawback to keeping the yard watered is mowing. I stayed out to long yesterday,mowing and made myself sick. Headache and sick to my stomach so I came in,took a cool shower and laid down under a/c in darkened bedroom for the rest of the day.

PP

As it turns out, we have an arsonist at work, the fires haven't been accidental. Five started in roadside ditches on this street over the weekend, many others in the general area. They got me last night, but a neighbor patrolling because of the fires almost caught them, came roaring up the driveway to alert me, and we got it put out in five minutes. There was very little damage, it had only covered a few square feet when the neighbor saw it and a little sedan pulling away.

The odd thing is that neither I nor the neighbor called it in to the volunteer fire department, but someone did, and there were no other cars on the street at any time other than the neighbor and the little sedan belonging to the firebug. All of the fires are starting out of sight of homes, so it almost has to be the firebug calling them in.

If we catch him, he'll get some relief from the heat in an air-conditioned hospital room.

If the arsonist called in the fires, does your local 911 dispatch center have the equipment that records the phone number of the caller?? I think they can even regiter cell phone calls these days. If so, he's set himself up for prosecution right there. Man, I hope so. That is such a stupid wasteful thing to do. What if it took someone's hay supply or worse yet, a home? When we lived in Boone County (Columbia) someone was setting rows of round bales on fire. DH was with the Boone County Fire Protection District as a volunteer firefighter then and said it was nearly impossible to put out a bale fire like that. They just had to let them burn and it took forever.

At one time, we had a neighbor who would drive her nearly grown son through the community to let him throw lighted fire crackers out the window around Independence Day. It was only by the Grace of God that they didn't set some fires because it was so dry when they lived near us. We were within sight of their house so we got this treatment quite often. I couldn't believe this woman had so little sense!

Hope they catch this guy quickly.

I phoned the sheriff's department and they did log the call, but I don't know if they can track cell phone numbers. They do track land line numbers, for certain. She said they can't give out any information on who phoned in or what kind of phone they had, but she did confirm they received it and dispatched the volunteer fire fighters. That I already knew, by they didn't know there weren't any innocent passersby to see it. We have to get a plate number to prosecute.

There were no more fires reported last night after that one and I thought maybe he'd been scared off, but no such luck. Two more fires so far today.