With the thermometer climbing into suffocating, unbearable to be outside weather, I have had to give up sitting on my back porch and am now sequestered inside where our air conditioning is keeping me cool and companionable (I get really mean when I get hot).
That hot, sticky, hard to breathe feeling that comes over me when I begin to sweat makes me argumentative, to say the least. My husband tries to keep me cool.
When spring first came upon us, the flowers blooming, the weather on my back porch and as I tended my flower beds was pleasant and I truly enjoyed being outside. But in a couple of weeks, it was steamy, hard to breathe, making mean temperatures. Now, my flower beds are growing and flourishing with sumac, poison ivy and fescue grasses.
We have a friend who just moved here from Michigan and has gone to work in an outside job, and I remember him saying, “The Mississippi heat is not all that bad.” Well, that was back when I was sitting on my porch and tending my flower beds. Now, he’s melting down just as we all are.
I just can’t remember it being this hot and stifling when I was growing up. We had no air conditioning but had one window fan in a back bedroom window and slept with our windows open to catch a breeze. I remember sleeping nearly inside my window with just the screen separating me from the outside elements. If it rained, wonderful! Nowadays, if we only had a screen protecting us from the outside, we would be snatched through the small blockade and never heard from again.
And to make the situation more complicated here at the Circle S, my husband is cold-natured. We watch television at night with him wrapped in a soft fluffy blanket as I am very comfortable. I have a small fan on the table at my side of the bed and it keeps the sheets on our bed cool, even during the winter months. He sleeps in his socks!
We don’t have a swimming pool here on the farm, but we do have several large ponds and lakes. Do snakes bite under water?
We are enjoying lots of fresh squash from our garden, and I am trying ways to fix them. Here’s one new recipe:
Brown a pound of ground chuck with one diced onion and ½ cup of bell pepper, one teaspoon garlic powder, and salt and pepper until done. Set aside. Cut up about 5 cups of fresh squash and pour over top of the meat. Simmer until squash is tender, browned and cooked down.
