We’re Havin’ a Heatwave
A tropical heatwave! Lately temps in Appomattox and surrounding areas have been close to triple digits. Richmond has been seeing 100 to 101 degrees for several days but we are much more comfortable with our 98s. In other words, great hay-making weather but pretty wretched for any other human activities.
Relief is promised by NOAA for the end of the week but only time will tell if this materializes. A little rain would be nice about now too, and cooling thunderstorms are also in our future. With all the frantic hay cutting and baling that has been going on in these parts, rain is just what those fields need to make a second cutting.
The animals have been taking the heat pretty much in stride. Of course they are sweating a lot and the cats are taking advantage of cool slate to lie on. If cats could remove their fur coats for the summer, I suspect we would have a lot of funny looking cats running around right now, their furry pelts in summer storage. It must be unpleasant to only be able to sweat from one’s paw pads. Their wee little tongues hardly qualify for body cooling a la dog tongues.
Horses can sweat over their entire bodies and also eat a lot of salt when the heat gets this bad. Some of them will even partake of a pond wallow, given access to a pond. The other day a flock of visiting Canada geese were rudely pushed off the pond by half a dozen hot horses splashing and rolling around. As the horses moved across the pond the geese slowly departed and circled around behind them, re-entering the water as the horses exited, shook themselves and trotted off.
Even the plants are fairing ok in the intense heat. The soil is still damp below the surface so their roots are staying moist. A few timely rains will keep this going all summer with a little luck. Otherwise it will mean hauling out the soaker hoses to prevent fatal dessication of ornamental trees and shrubs. And there is nothing sadder than seeing fruit shrivel on the tree from lack of water, especially after we avoided a late frost this year and most fruit trees are covered with green peaches, plums, apples, and pears.
For those lucky enough to have cherry trees, this is the season. The cherries are ripening and it is a fight with blackbirds to get a harvest. Sparkly stuff festooned over the branches and among the fruit helps a lot to frighten off hungry birds. I find that the shiny ribbon made of mylar and highly reflective really does help. At least it helps a lot more than inflatable owls….
It used to be that our part of Virginia seldom had to worry about tornadoes in the summer. The operative words being “used to” because lately we have been assaulted by more than one. Driving around the County, it is not all that unusual to see uprooted trees with branches ripped off by high winds. Every thunderstorm of late seems to be accompanied by tornado warnings. The weather service is even breaking into radio broadcasts to announce them.
First it was earthquakes making themselves known in central Virginia and now it is tornadoes. What’s next, hurricanes?
Not that we don’t get lots of rain from these massive tropical storms. In the past they have brought us severe flooding and power outages. But we are generally spared the high winds that punish coastal areas.
The 2008 Hurricane Season officially began on June 1st and there was even a tiny named storm thrashing around the Yucatan Peninsula. That is a long way from Appomattox of course, and even from Florida and most of the Gulf coast; but it is early days yet. The big storms generally don’t appear until much later in the season, August, September, and October being peak times for killer hurricanes.
So, try to enjoy the last few weeks of late spring. Summer in Appomattox officially begins with the Summer Solstice on June 20th at 7 PM EDT. That is a Friday this year, an excellent excuse for a party to welcome summer back.
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