Baby, it's hot down in Dixieland!

I am NOT a morning person. I like to stay up late and sleep in until my joints start aching, which is somewhere around 8 a.m. What does that have to do with it being hot here? With temperatures reaching the low 90s by 9 a.m. and climbing steadily to well over 100 F by mid-afternoon most days, going outside is like walking into a sauna. It literally takes your breath away. All of the blackberries that grow wild around our property shriveled up and died on the vine. Our figs would have suffered the same fate, had I not checked to see why the birds were not flocking to the trees to steal our crop. Even with daily watering, our grapes are hard and green one minute and black and split open the next. Heck, even the weeds are dying which seems to be the only positive effect to our landscape.

Since the middle of June, south Louisiana has suffered above average temperatures and little to no rain. In fact, we are experiencing a drought, a word rarely heard or used in an area that averages 65 inches of rain annually. Our parish (county to everyone else) has requested that we limit our water usage and not water our lawns between noon and midnight. Water our lawns? Who would have ever thought we would have to water our lawns here? Usually we are moaning and groaning when it rains because we know that when it dries up, we will have to pull out the mower before we are overtaken by a jungle of grass and weeds!

My dogs are probably the most unhappy with this situation. Pugs are just not built for a hot climate and I have four of them that live here in my office. Yes, I said four. Add a 5 month old German Shepherd to the mix and it's a recipe for disaster. The pugs spend most of their days grouching at one another and at the behemoth pup that keeps trying to herd them into a nice, neat little puggie pile. I spend most of the day screaming, "Tank! Off! Tank! No!"

So, in the interest of saving my sanity and my meager crops of figs, tomatoes, and herbs, a change is in order. I vow that I will try to go to bed a little bit earlier. I vow to set my alarm for 6:30, get up and make some extra strong coffee, and get my plants watered while the dogs are out running off some pent up energy. I'll even try to not bite anyone's head off if they should accidentally speak to me before I've drank my first cup of coffee. There is one thing I refuse to do though --- I refuse to like it! They say the early bird gets the worm but this is one Southern chick that could live without worms......zzzzzzzzzzz.

Stay cool!
Dee