Not really much you can say good about weather in august in ok.

Today is National watermelon day.

Robert, That's true. Well, we could say that at least we don't have an ice storm breaking trees, a tornado breaking trees, or a flash flood running through our gardens.

Stockergal, Some of our dogs (now deceased, and oh how I miss them) would do that in summer when it was really hot. I think they might have been digging to create a cool place in the moist soil to lie down.

Kim, In honor of National Watermelon Day, I fed watermelon to the chickens this afternoon when our high temperature hit 104 and our heat index was around 109. It was so hot out there! We (as in "they") had a good time, ate all the watermelon and then splashed in puddles of water I made by running the hose on the ground in a couple of low spots. Our chickens are spoiled, but the heat can be hard on them so I try to find them a cool, moist snack for each afternoon. Tomorrow they may get a muskmelon.

I know we have had worse August weather, but I forget from one year to the next just how awful August is until the August weather knocks me upside the head to remind me. We had a grassfire late this afternoon, within the last 45 minutes or so, because that's what our firefighters need to do---go out and fight a grass fire in this weather when they'd rather be at home getting ready to eat dinner. Luckily it wasn't a big fire--only a half acre or so--and everyone is headed home now.

Dawn

I did my shopping in Joplin today and as I was leaving Sam's my car temp said 102. Only 97 at home (LOL, only) and I noticed it go as low as 92 as I came through the trees and close to the lake. Funny it can be so different.

I'm seriously hoping this week is the worst of it. I can hope. This is too rough, but at least it's not 2011 and my kids have self regulating nervous systems. <3

Carol, The highest our car thermometer showed when we were down in Texas yesterday was 104, and here in OK it showed 102, which ended up being our official high at our OK Mesonet station. The thermometer here showed 104 at our house, and our heat index at home was 111, about the hottest it has been all summer. Today is supposed to be the same, and then tomorrow the same, and the next day and the next day and the next day. It is getting old.

Bon, The one (and perhaps only) good thing about 2011's weather is that no matter how bad the weather is now, we can look back at 2011 and say that we're not as hot or as dry now as we were in 2011. There's not a lot of comfort in that, but it is about the best we can do right now. Oh, another good thing? I haven't seen a snake all week. It is too hot for them to be out during the daytime, or they're doing a better job of hiding in the shade.

Dawn

Today is National watermelon day

And don't forget that Monday August 8th is 'National sneak some Zucchini onto your neighbors porch day'. I only have yellow straight neck squash producing at the moment so my neighbors will have to settle for some of that.

National Zucchini day

I will not be able to celebrate that. I am only getting 1 per day. I did however consume half of a watermelon. ...

I will probably have to celebrate National Zucchini Day by giving my chickens all of the overgrown Korean squash that I failed to pick. Man that stuff is easy to miss. It has crawled everywhere including into the tomato cages. The squash is the same color as the leaves, plus you don't want to miss one day of picking or it is huge. Yesterday the chickens got overgrown cucumbers and today it will be squash. I always think that I am planting things so far apart in the Spring, but some plants just assume that any vacant space is their space and they attempt to fill it.

I had some seeds in a tiny bowl in my kitchen window in the Spring. I knew they were winter squash, but I didn't remember what kind. I planted a few in a large container hoping they would shade the chicken pen when the weather got hot. Well it worked.......to well. It turned out to be Seminole and they are taking over the world. I'll bet there are at least 20 squash out there. Some are already getting hard rinds, but it continues to set new squash. Since it roots all along the vine, it is a mess, and I can't even mow the grass. It has climbed over everything in it's path. The plant is outside the pen, but there are squash hanging inside the chicken pen, on the top and sides, in the other pots and cages that are out there, under the boat, and probably over the river and through the woods. Well, if I had a river and woods they would be. LOL

It was 85 on the way to work at 6:37 this morning. 85! And the sun hadn't even come up yet.

I love the idea of Seminole growing over the river and through the woods. It does that here...and over the tomato cages and through the fence too. I adore a plant that grows and produces like crazy despite the weather.

It was too hot too early. I get out as early as I can manage and it feels too hot within 30 minutes of going out. Our heat index today hit 99 by 10 a.m. It was crazy. I think the temperature was 80-something when I first walked out the door, but the heat index felt even worse than the actual temperature. When your overnight low stays in the 80s, it doesn't give you much hope for the new day.

We were 104 here today (temperature, not heat index) just like yesterday. The temperature tonight will be about the same as last night, as in too hot. Tomorrow will be the same. There is a boring same-ness to these early August days.

I hear you guys, it is hot when you walk outside in the early morning. Today we had clouds most of the day. It was trying to rain NW of us but it was still very warm. It seems that when we get a little cloud cover the wind dies completely and it is worse than when the sun is out.

last night after dark we had to go check one of our farms to see if the gates were locked. We were driving down a dirt road that I think the entire city of OKC thinks is a free dump. We drove by this grocery cart in the middle of the road, crazy right. No, it gets better, we picked it up. Ha ha it was in good shape. Brought it home and guess what my grandson played with all morning. He had every dog in it giving it a ride around the house. Then he had to ride and I had to push him around. We pretended to be at the grocery store. No wonder I get nothing done. Who needs expensive Christmas gifts!!!

Tomorrow my daughter, grandson and I are going to a water park. I am so looking forward to it. I need a break. He asked me what slides, Nana was going down. I said "slide", Nana is staying on the lazy river. Ha ha Cool water here I come!!!!!!

LOL, Stockergal, I've always wanted a shopping cart. Back when I was doing laundry for 6 I thought that would be perfect. My grandson came over the other day and played in a cardboard box.

stockergal, I do think being near rain and not getting it can make your outdoor conditions feel worse because you get the higher humidity and higher dewpoint without benefitting from the rain and rain-cooled air. The shopping cart story is hysterical. How are you going to top that when Christmas rolls around? I hope y'all have a fun day at the water park today. When our son was young and we'd go to the water park, I always preferred drifting along in the lazy river to the big slides too!

Amy, What is it with kids and cardboard boxes? They are a cute combination though. I remember Chris' (and all our nieces and nephews) and their first couple of Christmases and birthdays, where the boxes, ribbon and wrapping paper were more interesting to them than the holiday gifts and birthday gifts so carefully selected for them by their family members. We used to joke that we just should have wrapped empty boxes for them and the kids would have been just as happy.

I had a friend years ago, lived in Oklahoma on a dumproad and he dig through the trash and found mail with the address and took their trash back to them. I like to imagine the look on their faces when they saw it lol.

That's what the police do, look for identification in the trash. Probably 15 years ago I got stopped on a dump road. I was birding, no doubt driving slow and erratically to the cop. He thought I was going to dump trash. I doubt they have the man power for that now. I think there was a lot of crime in that area, too, so maybe that is why he was there.

Kim, if only we were a fly on the wall at that time. lol

Multiple times per year our city offers opportunities to dump for free. And twice a year they do free curb-side pick up. Still, the old buildings downtown are full of boxes full of junk. Most folks here are poor. As a natural result, they are hoarders. There's so many different ways to deal with trash, I don't understand the dumping. I mean everyone is forced to pay for trash service. It's not hard to slowly put things in the regular trash cans. Over time, it'll all be gone.

I've thrown out entire sofas bit by bit (and ended up with some garden trellises and home made tools and stuffing material for pillows). I guess it's just too much "work" for most. I'm tearing up a sofa right now, in fact. It's seen it's last days. Everything we have is old and crappy. lolz

Come to think of it, we've sifted through 4 generations of other people's crap just from sheer circumstance. Not once did we need to illegally dump anything. We still have too much stuff ! Id' burn a lot of stuff if it weren't so hazardous most of the year.

In the words of Collette from Bealtaine Cottage in Ireland, "There is no away!"

bon

It is too hot for this early in the morning. I am getting ready to head out to the garden, and the temperature is 80 and the heat index is 83 and the sun isn't even up yet. I bet I don't last long out there this morning. Yesterday I lasted until 9:45 a.m. but I stayed outside too long and got too hot (a constant problem this week and last, and probably next week as well). I hope to be smarter today and be back inside by 8 or 8:30 a.m.

It did seem like it barely cooled off last night. At midnight we still were in the 80s and the hat index was still 90. I feel sorry for all the animals stuck out in the heat 24/7, particularly the wild animals that don't get a break. Our dogs and cats are so spoiled by the air conditioning that they are barely going outdoors at all this month--just for brief time periods when they do go out. Even the main chicken coop has a fan in it, though I run it only during the day and not at night so far.

Another August day, another heat advisory. It is like the movie Groundhog Day where you wake up to the same thing over and over and over.

Amy, They probably were on the lookout for people engaged in illegal dumping and I agree with you that undoubtedly they lack the manpower now to do patrols for that specific reason. There's just too much violent crime for them to have any time left for non-violent crime.

I'm happy for everyone who is getting rain except those who are getting it too fast. So sorry we cannot all get rain, but some is better than none.

An inch and a half in the rain gauge. Lost power for 2 1/2 hours, fried the coffee pot timer and the desktop computer. This water is more expensive than the city's. It is still raining and depending on how what's in KS moves, might be for a while. And I see little bitty pop up storms dancing around Dawn. Of course I watered last night. This much all at once will crack tomatoes. I don't have many on the vine right now. New growth with blooms, but not many tomatoes.

Well, I get to brag for once in August since it is 72 degrees and RAINING. I watered my containers last night and as I walked away from the run-away squash, I had the thought that it was going to rain. Al is helping a neighbor work on his truck (under a carport) and they had plans to begin again early this morning to avoid some of the heat. As he opened the door to leave, he told me it was raining so I just went back to sleep.

Our county has dumpsters in a lot of places where you can take household trash for free, and a dump site for other things where they weigh your vehicle going in and out and charge for the weight you dump. It works great but they watch them pretty carefully because they are only for the people who live in the county and they have had others try to bring their trash at times. Even with that convenience we still get dirty roadsides from people throwing cans and bottles out their car windows and an occasional trash bag that falls off a truck and gets ripped open by an animal, but I don't know of any 'dump roads', and I'm sure that the convenience helps to keep the roads around the lake cleaner.

The Mesonet shows we have had almost a half inch of rain, and the radar looks promising for more. I am bragging, but my Facebook reminded me yesterday that four years ago I had a tree laying on my house from a storm. We had lots of trees down and a neighbors roof blown off in our neighborhood. All the neighbors knew it was a tornado, but we waited days to see if the NWS actually called it a tornado. Finally, the insurance adjusters told our neighbors that it had been declared an F1. Our nice slow rain today is much better than our weather 4 years ago, for sure.

I remember that. I'm glad it's just rain this year for you.

Bon, I'm glad some folks are getting rain. I just wish that I could be one of them! (grin) As I was walking back from the mailbox this morning with my cell phone in one hand and mail in the other, I was looking at the ground (watching for snakes, you know) and thinking that if I dropped either my cell phone or mail, they could fall right down one of those big wide cracks in the ground and just completely disappear because the cracks are getting deep. We aren't even in drought, officially, as we had 6" of rain in June and 2" in July, but we're definitely abnormally dry, and miserably hot.

Amy, I'm sorry your coffee pot timer and desktop computer got fried. I hate it when random weather crap causes such expensive and unexpected damage. That is just terrible. What a horrible price y'all are having to pay for getting a bit of August rain.

This morning's popup storms missed us and so far this afternoon's popup storms are missing us too. I'm not feeling real hopeful, but they gave us a 20% chance, so who knows....it could happen.

Carol, I'd trade places with you in a heartbeat. I haven't checked lately, but the last time I looked, our Max Temperature so far today was 101 with a Max heat index of 108 and no rain. I expect you'd rather not trade weather with me today. (grin) I'm glad you're getting a nice break from the August heat. There have been times today our temperature dropped a couple of degrees and I thought rain was coming, but nope, it then heated back up and the thought of potential rain just fell right out of my mind. We have some lovely clouds popping up and I think they could produce a rainstorm, but with the luck we've had lately, I'm not holding my breath while waiting for it to occur.

I, too, remember when the tree came down. It is so hard to believe it has been four years already. Where does the time go?

I watered the garden this morning in an attempt to make it rain, but also in an effort to keep everything happy and moist in case it didn't rain. Maybe I need to go outside and wash the car, and perhaps all the windows on the house. Maybe that would make it rain.

When we last received good rainfall (and it might have been exactly four weeks ago this weekend), the rain announced its arrival by sending out dry lightning strikes ahead of the rain that then ignited a grass fire a couple of miles from our house. Hopefully if rain is headed our way today, it won't be so dramatic about stating "I'm here".

Dawn

81* and 86% humidity at 9:15. Doesn't bode well for the day.

Another day of misery, huh? I am going to sound like a broken record: Max Temp at our house 104, Max Heat Index 108. It is the same thing every day. Maybe one day soon we'll get a break and it will be only 103/107. To celebrate the cool weather, maybe I'll make an Icebox Pie.

I can tell by the temperature/heat index at 9 am and at 10 am just how bad of a day it is going to be especially if the increase between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. is greater than usual. Today, by 8:00 a.m., I'd already given up on trying to do anything outdoors. When the first thing the tom turkey does is to go stand in the chickens' water pan (NOT in his own water pan) in the shade, that's a clue, too.

LOL, I bet a Tom Turkey could leave a mess in that pan. TV said it was 111 heat index here today. DH was in the garage working with the table saw and doing a lot of growling. His displeasure kind of bled through to the kitchen. Didn't help my mood. We have another chance for rain tonight. Looks like rain in the NW and SE part of the state. Sorry Dawn, you do kind of live in the donut hole.

He leaves a mess everyday and I wash out the pan and refill it. If I make him his own big puddle on the ground in the shade, sometimes he stands in that puddle instead of standing in the water pan.

We've had a lot of 10% and 20% rain chances fairly often, but nothing comes of them. We have a better chance this coming weekend. I'll be keeping my fingers (and all my toes) crossed.

We had a grass fire this evening. Well it was a vehicle on fire in the middle of a field. I don't know if the vehicle set the field on fire or if the field was on fire and caught the vehicle on fire. Either way, it was just a couple miles SW of us as the crow flies and another sign that we're too dry.

Our Keetch-Byram Drought Index number is about to break 600 in the next couple of days. This usually is the point at which I give up irrigation and just let the garden die because once our soil is that dry, I can water enough to keep the plants growing but not necessarily producing. At that point, watering is just like pouring money down a rabbit hole....or a crack in the ground. I hate to give up watering if we are close to getting a break in the heat and some rain over the weekend, so I might water once at mid-week in an effort to keep at least the fall garden plants going. My patience is being depleted as quickly as our soil moisture (which is very low) so the much-hoped-for rain needs to just hurry up and get here. The cats are cranky, the dogs are cranky, the poultry is cranky......everybody needs a break from the heat, including the humans.

I don't think you can say it to many times. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot........ I know we have hot summers but the air is so heavy. No breeze no clouds you just can't get away from it. I can't remember a summer that the heat ran me inside before noon. This year I'm coming in by ten. Then the afternoons are so long. Then I try to get back out side by 6:30 and it ain't happening. So between 8:00 and dark I'm running around like a crazy woman trying to get everything watered and all animals fed, it's crazy.

I have not mentioned that we have my mother in law in an assisted living center under hospice care. Well today she took a turn for the end, so everybody is waiting for the angels. I will miss her very much we are very close, she is like a second mother to me. I learned a lot about gardening from her and taught her a few things.

so, I will be away from the site for a while until it's over.

I am so sorry. I just went through this last week and love my father in law so much. He was a great guy. Well still is just changed address is all... will be praying for y'all.

I am reading these posts now because I'm up watering before the hot sun comes up, even though we had some decent rain Thursday and Friday. I'm so sorry you guys are dealing with these difficult times. I lost my dad July 7th and a stepson on the 18th. My dad had lived a good, full life and was suffering with Alzheimer's, so though it's been difficult, I am comforted in knowing his mind and body are whole again. My DSS was only 37, and full of the joy and life. I hope he and Dad are sharing stories and laughter in heaven.

stockergal, I am so sorry. I'll be thinking of you and praying for peace for you and your family.

When my father was in hospice care, it was probably the hardest thing our family ever had been through, but there was a certain peace of mind that came from the fact that all of us were able to be with him those last few days. Being able to gather together and be with him near and at the end of his days on this earth was a privilege and a pleasure even though it also was painful and heartbreaking. As he quietly slipped away from us, there was a peace within himself that we all could feel. He had battled Alzheimer's for well over a decade and he was tired. He was ready to go. That doesn't mean it was easy for us to let him go, but we all had a chance in those last days to speak with him, to comfort him, to assure him that we'd be okay without him and that we'd take care of mom and each other. Those were words he needed to hear, and he seemed to relax after hearing them all. Considering the circumstances, it was a peaceful way to go. The hospice folks were truly wonderful and in those last couple of days, at the brief times when he was conscious, he seemed more like himself than he had in years. I cannot explain that except to say that he knew his soul was preparing to travel on to a better place, and he was at peace with that knowledge. It seemed like he recognized us, miraculously, after years of not knowing who we were, and that was the greatest gift of all.

sandplum, Please accept my most profound sympathy. I can only imagine how difficult this summer has been for you and your family. May God comfort you and your family. I'll be praying for peace and comfort for you and your family as well. Alzheimer's Disease is so cruel. When we lost our dad, it wasn't that one day we had him and the next day he was gone---it was that Alzheimer's had gradually taken him from us, day after day, month after month, for many years. It was a long, slow good-bye.

I know it is so hot to be outside, even in the early morning hours, but I always have found the garden is my favorite place to be during times of grief, and being in it soothes my soul. Gardening is good therapy for broken hearts and grieving souls. I hope being out in the yard and garden are soothing for you in the same way that it is for me.

You're ahead of me on watering. I need to head outside and do that as soon as the sun comes up. I cannot go out while it is too dark on account of the snakes. Last week I was out very early and so was a skunk, so I'm not in too big of a hurry to head out---if I am going to encounter a varmint, it's got to be light enough that I can see it.

Our soil moisture is down to nothing except in the areas where I'm watering. I keep an idea of my own soil moisture by sticking my finger down in the soil to see if I can feel any moisture. I also look at one of the Mesonet maps that shows soil moisture levels as the percentage of plant available water measured numerically. Well, plants endure moisture stress if the number on this map drops below 0.50, so I try to make sure I'm irrigating the garden when we drop below that level. Right now, for our county, the number is at a pathetic 0.03. I water deeply every few days, but there's not enough water in southern OK (or enough $$$ in our bank account) for me to be able to water enough. I feel like the water I'm pouring on the garden is just barely keeping the plants going right now. Every day I hope for rain, and then hibernate inside the air conditioned house and just try to stay cool. I even keep a box fan running in the largest chicken coop all day long. While the chickens prefer to be outdoors, when they get hot, they go into the coop and stand right in front of the fan. On the other hand, since no rain has fallen in a month, the grass isn't growing so we haven't had to mow the lawn in a couple of weeks now. At least there's that.

Dawn

Thank you, Dawn. We had dealt with a similar time frame with my dad. The last three years he was at the Veterans Hospital in Sulphur and received excellent care there, which was a comfort as well. He was a tough guy and was dealing with more than one physical ailment, and in the end, it was chronic lymphocytic leukemia that took him, so we were blessed that he was still able to communicate and eat. I got to feed him his last meal and he had had a good day and passed peacefully. For that, I am so thankful.

Sometimes I wonder if our well is going to hold up and if I should just quit watering our sandy soil. Then I see goldfinches feasting on sunflower seeds and bumblebees buzzing in the flowers, and think I'll just keep on keeping on.

Carol

Sandplum, Stockergal and Luvncannin you have my sympathy. My dad just spent a week in the hospital. He is 89.

Healing energy to all of you dealing with health issues, and those you love.

A friend of mine here in town had a possum come in through her dog door last night. I can only think it was looking for water or cool air. But, ew.

Thank you, Dawn, Amy, and Rebecca.

Oh, Rebecca, I know it wasn't funny for your friend to come upon that possum, but I laughed so hard! Honestly, I've thought about putting in a pet door as I'm grumbling about letting this one in or that one out, but your friend's scenario is exactly why I don't! I think a possum would be better than a skunk or raccoon, though!

Carol

Carol, You're welcome. I'm glad your last day with him was so pleasant. That is a wonderful memory to have.

I was looking at the bees and butterflies today and thinking I had to at least keep watering some things for their sake, so I watered the whole garden and hope the moisture rains a while.

We have thunder, lightning, clouds, a temperature that has plummeted, and heavy rainfall falling to our west and northwest. What we do not have here is rain. Our mesonet station is in Burneyville and Burneyville is getting the rain, so our dry spell for official record-keeping purposes likely has ended. Maybe the rain will eventually slide further east and get us later this evening or tonight.

Our high temp at our house today was 107. I kept staring at the thermometer and wondering if that was real. lol. It was exceptionally hot out there. I set up the sprinkler under some trees and watered the chickens. They had a great time.

Rebecca, Our dog door didn't last long because of the fear wildlife would come in through out. Mostly, though, we had to take it out because our cat, Moose, who was a great hunter, begin bringing in dead voles and birds and lining them up on the pantry floor. I was impressed that he understood food was stored in the pantry, but umimpressed with his desire to stock our pantry with his own food supply, so the doggie door had to go. Some neighbors of ours had a skunk get into their house one night while they were sleeping. Imagine waking up and going to investigate an odd noise (they thought it was the dog wanting to go out) and finding a skunk roaming around the house?

Possums are not very harmful to humans, though they can show those teeth and look scarey. Then they fall on the ground and drool and play dead and look fairly gross.

Dawn