Hello August!

The dwindling pond

August and the dog days of summer have arrived! Only thing good I can say about August is that it's one month closer to Autumn! Just today I noticed the days are getting shorter. Normally I do my evening chores as late as possible in hopes that the temperatures will be a tad bit cooler. Usually that means I'm back in the house by dark, which has been 8:30ish. Today it was 8:00ish and dark already.

The heat has been a real bear, but fortunately all the animals seem to be dealing with it okay so far. I expect it will be worse before it gets better, but the rabbit gets his bottle of ice to cuddle with, the chickens, ducks and goats have shade and fresh water and the dogs stay inside in the air conditioning. They're not about to lay around outside during the dog days of summer!

Hermione and Teagan

Even the cats have found ways to stay cool. Some of them refuse to go out, some of them prefer lounging on the cool concrete floor in the garage and, as you can see, Hermione likes to spread out on the floor with the dogs so she can cool her belly on the floor. More often than not you will find her sprawled out like this with her belly spreading out on each side of her body. It's like she has plastered herself to the floor.

Guinness, our Husky mix, is the only dog to lay like this.. He likes to lay on the back porch with his rear legs sprawled out to the sides. Being a large dog, it's a funny sight to see.

Even the two barn cats have given up the relative cool of the barn for the garage. Harley and Murphy both can be found snoozing in the garage. Murphy sleeps like the dead in the most awkward positions. One of these days I'll have to share a photo of him. Coming home from the grocery store Monday evening I found him down by the pond sprawled out in the middle of the driveway. He never even twitched as the truck got close to him, which scared me badly. I just knew he'd suffered heat stroke or something and was lying there dead. Jumping out of the truck I called his name and he slowly raised his lazy head and yawned at me. WHEW...I moved his lazy self off the driveway so I could drive on up to the house.

Speaking of the pond, it is getting awfully low. I haven't been down there fishing since Don killed the huge water moccasin. Nearby Arkabutla Lake is so low that I see dead fish floating on the edges of the lake when I go to Hernando to do my shopping. It continues to be terribly dry and hot here. Today I dug up an onion for supper and the ground in the garden is dust on top and dry as a bone beneath the surface. It was so hard I was barely able to get the shovel into the ground around the onions. No way would I have been able to just pull it out of the ground!

So I welcome August and hope it passes swiftly! I'm yearning for cool Autumn days and autumn rain pattering on the roof.