Summer sliding down...

The long, hot summer is upon us.  August is pretty miserable out here.  It is muggy, hot, and the sweat just streams down my face with any exertion.  I am sitting indoors with the air on.  I try to keep it around 80 degrees (84 at night).  In June and July this is quite pleasant, but in August, nothing works.  I can't bring myself to lower the temp, as the cost of electricity spurs me on to new heights of energy watchfulness!!  So I sit in front of a fan.  I can't stand it, though, and every so often I have to go outside...to check the tortoises, to weed, clean the patio, water, sweep.  Anything to be outside.  Then I have to come in once I am drenched.  All my plants are struggling to make it.  One actually melted (at least that is what it looks like) in the heat from the past two weeks. I try new ones every year to see what will make it and what will not (I have a collection of plants from South America and South Africa).

In spite of it all, I find things to fascinate me.  The sky is one.  In the early morning, when the temps are down, the desert has a light haze over it, causing the sky to be a pale blue.  No clouds are apparent.  By mid morning thunderheads have formed over the ring of mountains around us, concentrating some of that moisture and some of the deep desert blue sky pops out among the clouds.  By evening, the winds pick up and blow some of the clouds away, leaving a few puffy ones scattered across the vast arch of sky.  The humidity does not seem so brutal at night.  It is a beautiful changing scene.

Blue skies presage fall.

I am waiting for the first touch of fall: we are only 3 weeks away from the fall solstice.  Even now, the evenings are hot but a cooling wind is blowing and it is pleasant out once the sun has dipped below the horizon.  Today, the sky was hot an blue, no trace of the humidity that has been plaguing us.  Just a fall teaser....