Dog Days of Summer

My meat thermometer says that it is 87 degrees in the house this evening. Apparently, one of the most useful things about having a handy magnetic meat thermometer that hangs on the refrigerator is being able to check the temperature: not of meat but of the inside. In the winter, I could say, “Aack! It’s 40 degrees in the kitchen!” and complain about it here. Sure wish we could bottle some of that chilliness and save it for days like today.

It’s nearly the time of day when the outside temperature starts to possibly feel slightly cooler than the inside. Which means that it is time to open the windows. At least the ones at the front of the house. Our house faces directly east (perhaps not the best planning), which means that in the summer, we get full morning sun and then, a little later, full afternoon sun. This ensures that everything is thoroughly toasted by the time the sun finally disappears.

We don’t have air conditioning.

It surprises everyone when I tell them this. It’s not that unusual for our mountain climate, though. Lots of houses up here didn’t come with air conditioning, because when they were built, it was not this hot. And when it was hot for a few days in the summer, you could always count on it cooling down at night. So you would spend the day at the community pool, and in the evening you just had to open the windows, let in the cool Delta breeze, and all would be right with the world again. I’m used to not having air conditioning; the house where I grew up didn’t have it either. It was a two story house, so the upstairs would get warm, but every evening my Mom would tell me to “go upstairs and open the windows,” and I would, and the breeze would start up, and life would be good.

The problem lately has been that the nighttime lows here are not that low anymore. They’ve been in the 70s the last few nights.  “Normal” is 60. That’s a huge difference. We don’t seem to be getting “normal” low temperatures anymore, at least not in the summer.

The heat didn’t keep me inside today, though. I put on my two pairs of gloves, my long pants and long sleeved shirt, and wandered out into my blackberry patch. Filled up my outdoor trash can with both blackberry starts and star thistle. Our little town is remarkably free of the star thistle scourge. But there are a few patches in my next door neighbor’s yard and also a few straggly plants at the house across the way. It’s a beautiful house, but nobody lives there now. It’s a generational home, passed on from great grandparents to grandparents to children who are reaching retirement age themselves. One of the relatives lived there for a time last year and took good care of the place, but he moved, so it’s been neglected this summer, and the weeds are thigh high in the yard. I spied some star thistle, though, so took my trash bag over and pulled what I could.

I don’t know if my small attempts at keeping this part of our town free from star thistle are making a difference. I like to think they are. I’ve gone out every summer for the past couple of years and pulled what I could. It doesn’t seem like it’s taken over yet, not like so many places nearby, where the countryside is covered and nothing else grows there anymore.

So it was a good hour or so outside. I had my son set a timer and asked him to come get me after an hour, so that I didn’t overdo it (my friend Sally would be proud of me). I came in when he came out (for a change. Without arguing), and sat for a spell and had some water. Went back out for a short time, but then came in for the day. Cooked up a mess of onions and some Polish sausage for supper. Added some water to the evaporative cooler just now. Didn’t realize that it only had the fan mode turned on.

When it comes to cooling the house in the age of global warming, every little bit helps. It would be nice to have air conditioning, but it’s not in the budget now, and anyway, if all the people who didn’t have air conditioning suddenly decided to install it, that would surely add to the global warming crisis.

(Also, Joe Manchin. And every single Senate Republican. They are also adding to the crisis.)

So what is there to do? Open the windows, add water to the portable evaporative cooler, sleep with the shades open, and try not to be too disturbed by the lights shining in from the neighbor’s yard, lights that you normally don’t notice when you can have the shades down. Pull star thistle, trim blackberries, drink iced tea with your neighbors. Check YubaNet.com everyday to see if any new fires have started in the region. Try not to be too discouraged when it appears that every day (yes. every day) there are fire starts, one that was even close by. Give thanks that the good Cal Fire people are able to put out so many of them quickly without loss of life or structures. Pack the go bags.

Mostly? Show up as best you can. That’s it, more than anything. Just keep showing up and doing good and loving the earth and your people and the people who are not your people as best as you can. Because what more can  you do, especially in a time like this, the dog days of summer, when it is so very. very. hot.