It's Hotter than Hot

It is hard to make myself get anything done this past week. It has just been too hot. We were at the Dallas Bridal Show (our Standing Ovations Events company had a booth there) and just loading and unloading the car was enough to give us heat exhaustion. One day, driving home, the car registered 113 degrees (probably from sitting in the sun all day) and when my forearm accidentally brushed the metal VW decor plate in the center of my steering wheel, I actually burned my arm!

I keep thinking I'll get up early and do some gardening before it gets too hot. But when I walk the dogs first thing, I'm sweating before I even get halfway down the driveway! And by the time I have walked them down to the mailbox (a half mile), I'm done with any outside activity until the next morning when I walk them again.

We took the boys for a walk tonight (which means that Tim and I rode on the golf cart and the dogs did the walking) and I took these photos. I've touched them up - but just to give you a feel of what the heat feels like - the touch-ups are my attempt to translate the feeling of the unrelenting heat into a visual.

Our apple trees are dying. Even with watering them, the heat is just too much.

Even though these things look really dry, they seem to be hanging on, no matter what the conditions.

There's not much moisture to keep the dust down on the road when the pickups drive by. This is at the back gate of our 26 acres.

Even the dry plants just don't seem to have the energy to fully unfurl and let their seeds go.

I took the next shots at dusk and allowed the flash to do its job. I thought it would be a tiny bit cooler at dusk. I was wrong.

And, back at the house, we are mystified as to why our Parasol tree is wilting. It gets the right amount of water - but is it just too hot for our special tree?

It's a bit embarrassing to show how our veggies are doing. We are doing the "upside-down" planting this year. Well, this red pepper shows what the heat can do to even the hardiest plants.

Isn't the yellow pepper below just about the saddest thing you've ever seen? I'm hoping we can salvage it and the red pepper above. We lost the tomato plant and probably the watermelon plant.

This is my ivy plant - which is green even in the darkest of winter. I'm not sure if I can revive it from this condition though.

The sunflowers are cycling - they bloom and then die fairly rapidly.

But, even with all the dryed up plants around, there are some that thrive no matter what.

And there you have my philosophy regarding the current conditions we are facing both nationally and globally. There are some that thrive no matter what because they can adapt to the reality of current conditions. I'm working on my adaptations to thriving in the current conditions we're facing as I write this.