I keep signing up for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) which allows you to retake the pledge every month to put up a post a day. Some months are better than others. Even though I wasn’t going to make it for July, I really fell off the rails as of Wednesday. Blame it on a mega Spanish test that had me using my computer only to cram in as many audio sessions as I possibly could. Then after Thursday night’s test, I took off for Sonoma early Friday. And smack into one of the most intense heat spells we’ve had this year so far. Figures I’d be supervising the moving of furniture right at noon when the temperatures shot up toward 100 degrees. I wasn’t sure the moving men were going to make it. Especially when they had to move horse mats throughout the barn. Those things are made from some rubberized form of lead.
Once that was accomplished, I tried to figure out what I could possibly do with the rest of the day. Well, the refrigerator needed cleaning. Nope, not going to take all the food out and leave it on the counter while I cleaned when it was over 90 degrees INSIDE. (Yes, we are that Green that we have no air conditioning in the living loft above the barn. Hey, who needs it? We’ve situated the building for the prevailing winds and we have ceiling fans. Nice theory anyway.)
How hot was it? Can't say. The heat broke the thermometer.
Work on my blog or do more Spanish exercises? Nope, laptop got so hot I could barely touch the keyboard. Shutting down was the better part of valor. Pick fruit or fertilize the fruit trees? You’ve got to be kidding. That involves a quarter mile hike straight up a 33 degree hill. No thanks. So I ended up involved in the only activity at all doable: lying on the cement floor of the barn with the dogs. Speaking of the dogs, terriers are never inactive. But this weekend, Oscar and Lucy morphed into the kind of lazy sleep-on-the-porch hound dogs you used to see on the old TV show Hee-Haw.
Did I mention that thermometer was completely in the shade?
There’s a blogger I follow who lives in Bakersfield and she’s probably sniggering right now having endured several months of over 90 temperatures. Fine, but it’s a whole different story when you are used to it. When you live most of the time in the perpetual Spring of San Francisco where a hot summer day is 70 degrees, then suddenly, in the space of an hour, land in the fourth Circle of Hell, the heat is more than the human — or terrier — body can stand.
By the way, how hot was it? Well, I’m not exactly sure. It was so hot, the mercury in our outside thermometer — which we should note is located completely in the shade — shot up so fast it split in two. (Note to self, keep a thermometer and a stunt thermometer on hand.)
In short, unless I wake up at three in the morning, I probably won’t be updating this weekend. Except if I want to press my fingers into a melting keyboard.
At least the vines are loving the heat. This is Mourvedre.
And so is the squash bed that ate Sonoma.
Our trailmaker extraordinaire, John the Baptist (right) and his colleague Louis were all smiles clearing brush Saturday morning. At 8AM. It wasn't a pretty sight toward noon.
By 1PM, no one was good for anything.
Nothing like seeing two dogs and their owner crashed after a busy morning’s work. I feel like that now after getting packed for vacation on the Cape next week. Maybe it was the beer that made me tired.
The bay area is known for its culture. Balderdash! The bay area is a barbaric place to be in the summer. My husband and I took a long weekend in July a couple of years ago to escape the valley heat. We were optomistic. We even packed sweaters. Hahahaha! There was a heat wave and San Franciscans don’t have air conditioning (AC to those of us that reside in hell.). We attended a play. The playhouse didn’t even have AC. I thought I would chill myself with an ice cold beer. Wrong. Room temperature. Holy crap! These sophisticats are completely barbaric. We headed home to where people know how to handle the heat.
We may have dust, heat, and Valley Fever; but we have air conditioning and ice, cold beer.
Amen
No air conditioning. On the plus side. We’re Green and lean and have fewer respiratory illnesses. On the negative side: no air conditioning.
Perceived wisdom: San Francisco never needs air conditioning.
Reality: at least once year without fail, it hits the 90s in SF and everyone runs out into the street complaining that they are dying.
Of course, in Sonoma, it is reliably in the 80s, 90s and 100s all summer. But we took our SF sensibility with us and decided to use “natural” air conditioning. Just puts us on a Mexican schedule: up early to work, siesta and resume work after 6:30 PM. Dinner at 10PM.
Oh, how I wish it was hot! Let’s see it is rainy, ugly and below normal temperatures. In July I wore a sweater all day and tonight I am laying on the couch with a blanket. It feels like FALL, in JULY, YUCK!! We have enough rainy days to last a lifetime and we count on July and August for sun and heat to sustain us through the rest of the year. We are all very unhappy midwesterners right now.
Fiesta / Siesta, That’s my kind of lifestyle.
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love San Francisco. If I had to live in a city, San Francisco would be it. Our luck was just plain horrible. We were trying to get away from the heat and it seems we dragged it up the valley with us. We’ll try again. At least the hotel had AC.
I was working in Bakersfield once in the Summer and the evening news reported that relief was insight as the heat wave we had been experiencing was going to break. The forecast for the following was was only going to 99 degrees, finally dropping out of the hundreds.
Mid-September of 2006 we visited Tuscany, Highs every day in mid to high 90’s. The rental car did have AC. We enjoyed cross breezes in our penthouse apartment and rested before dinner. All dining outside since neirghborhood estaurants had to have felt like pizza ovens inside.
Back here in Kentucky it is spooky cool for a couple of days. Just weird for 72 to be a high in mid-July. Should be closer to ninety. We like complaining about heat and humidity.
That is why they call it the “Dog days” of summer. Too hot for even the pups! Today will be the 5th day since the 14th of June that we will top out UNDER 100°. Our two terriers go in spurts, and we keep a kiddy pool on the shaded patio for them. They love to chase each other around the yard, then jump in the pool and lay down in the water – even in this triple digit heat!
Sorry to hear about all this July miserable-ness. Hoping you find some relief from the heat soon. It’s not been half bad here 🙂