I was out early this morning to water and weed the garden before it got too hot, though at 6am it was 21C/70F and increasing quickly. We all stayed indoors for most of the day. My brother, however, was back out there, working on his tractor! At least it has a makeshift roof over it, so there was shade. He also discovered a bee or wasp nest inside one of the hydraulic arms! In the afternoon, when I knew they were planning to head home soon, I came out to their caravan to visit for a bit and catch up. We hadn’t even reached the hottest part of the day when I headed out. Walking outside was like being in an oven. A very steamy oven. The humidity is wild. Both our basement concrete floors are wet, and it’s from the humidity. The well pump and hoses are covered in condensation, and all the cold water pipes are dripping. I got this screen cap at about the peak of our temperatures. 34C/93F at 5pm, with the humidex at 41C/106F. The next image in the slide show is the thermometer in the sunroom, at 40C/104F. I took that after I had to deal with a surprise as I came back to the house. Water was spraying into the grass. I’d pulled the hose up to the house, onto the sidewalk block, to have it out of the way in case I was able to get some weed trimming done. My first thought was that the nozzle somehow got turned on. It’s the type with a slider rather than a squeeze trigger. The water wasn’t coming from the nozzle, though, but from the Quick Connect. Which you can see in the last two photos of the slide show above. When I first got close enough to see where the water was coming from, I could see a split wide enough that the yellow washer was visible. I was able to get around to shut the water off, then went to take the Quick Connect off, and it fell apart in my hands. Talking to my husband about it later, he had actually seen the water start spraying. He thought I’d set up a sprinkler! He figures it was spraying for about 20 minutes. I got the parts of the Quick Connect off but left the water shut off. One of the front hoses is a metal construction grade hose, and that’s what the nozzle’s Quick Connect was attached to, and the hoses were sitting in full sun. The water inside the metal hose heated up in the sun enough that the pressure split the Quick Connect!! Once that was taken care of, took care of the evening cat feeding. There was still plenty of kibble in most of the trays, so I set out cat soup, instead. The freeze dried cat food mix is supposed to be rehydrated with warm water. I use hot water from the tap, and it’s still warm by the time it’s ready to go out. The yard cats still eagerly went at it, even in this heat! I’ll need to go out again soon and switch out the frozen water bottles I put in their water bowls. They’re all thawed out. I also set a frozen bottle in the cat bed at the top level of the isolation shelter, and set another one in a cat bed at the back of the water bowl shelter. Something hot kitties can lie down next to, and cool down at least a little bit. Those are completely thawed out, too. It’s been an hour since I screen capped the temperature. We’ve dropped to 33C/91F, but the humidex is unchanged. We are still under a Severe Weather Alert, but are now suddenly starting to get thunderstorm warnings. Not until about 9pm or so and, even then, only a 35% chance. The overnight temperature isn’t expected to drop below 26C/79F, and even that isn’t supposed to happen until about 8am tomorrow! It’s not going to be pleasant, doing the evening watering, but the garden is really going to need it. One more day of highs above 30C/86F. We won’t be dipping much lower, but enough to make a difference. My main concern is for Friday, though. We’re expected to approach, though not cross, 30C/86F again, and that’s when I need to drive my daughter to the women’s hospital in the city for her pre-op visit. Assuming we don’t have to go to the ER before then, which it’s starting to look like we won’t need to. The “use as needed” medication seems to be helping. As unpleasant as the heat is, most of what we have in the garden right now likes the heat. It’s a shame the melons we started inside over the winter got eaten. This weather is ideal for them. Ah, well. I’m still seeing little seedlings from the second sowing in the tray popping up, and I’ve been transplanting them whenever and wherever I can find the space. Two of them ended up in the tomato bed, where the tomato transplants didn’t make it. If we have a long, frost free fall, they might actually have time to produce mature fruit. Maybe. We shall see! The Re-Farmer