The Irises and the soon to be finished bridge.

Ah, now this looks beautiful...Lori...it is coming to life as a garden! :))

It looks so green. I wish it was this green here! :>)

Thanks Karen!
D1: I'd share some green...if I could have some of the Jacaranda purple! lol... It's been a very cold spring and a moist cold summer. I'm not complaining I love the coolness. Hope it continues into autumn. According to Environment Canada, Vancouver received almost no rain in July. That is unheard of... We used to joke about getting a raintan. lol...

Yes, I would love to share the Jacaranda purple for some green.

We have been cooler than normal for the last two weeks. The hot weather is suppose to return this week, though. I knew it was too good to be true. :>)

We are heading into another hot spell...according to Env. Canada. Only going to be 31 C. but that's waaay too hot for me!

Hope you're surviving the hot weather.

It's been warm here...but, definitely not as hot as it could be at this time of year.

I just saw two satellite pics of the Columbia river system and the shrunk reservoirs. I wish I could share some of the moisture we're getting today. I'm very thankful for the thunderstorms...it's cooler and the crops can really use the rain. It only takes about 4 or 5 days of very hot weather to dry things out. The sunflower field that I drove by yesterday was drooping! They'll be happy today though. No doubt you are enjoying the cooler times. :-)

The weather here is very hot and humid. This is the result of tropical storm Ivo. The inland areas (mountains and deserts) are getting severe flash flooding we are suppose to get a lot of rain; although, haven't received any rain at all yet. I hope we get at least a little bit of rain!

Flash flooding is very frightening...the small flash flood we had this spring was because someone opened an old beaverdam...and it came rushing downhill at us! It was fast and furious. I hope you get some rain and relief from the humidity without any risk. the one constant in our weather this year has been the complete unpredictability of it....it's been very cool, as I said, and it looks like it's a trend that will carry over into winter. Read that the new farmer's almanac predicts an early and extremely cold winter here.

Yes, flash flooding is extremely dangerous. You may have seen some of the news about the deserts and mountains of Southern California and Arizona's flash flooding. Palm Springs and Borrego Springs (in San Diego County) was especially hit hard. Lots of damage from the floods to people's homes.

Let's hope Farmer's Almanac predictions are incorrect! I know an extremely cold winter there is not what you want. I can't even imagine such a cold winter.

the signs of a cold winter are all around us...the fir trees are covered in cones...the hazelbrush was very nutty lol..., The squirrels are already haunting the walnut tree...the mountain ash are covered with berries...lots of stuff to fatten the little creatures for a very long sleep! I know there are bears in the area and have heard crashing trees in the forest. The bears find a dead tree and push it over to get at the ants or beetles infesting the dead trunk. Lots of wild blueberries this year too. Picked my apples yesterday...a wee bit early and they are still a bit green, because the birds are taking nips out of the skins. On the trees near the forest the deer and bears will gorge on the fallen apples, lucky for me the pigs have been penned all summer.

It seems you're already getting ready for winter. That's something I can't even comprehend as I sit in my house and it's a humid 93ºF (34ºC)! I'm not using my a/c after the huge energy bills I had last year.

You are fortunate that you can treat your use of energy as an option...when it's 20 below the only option is buy fuel or freeze! but by the same token...if I had to live with San Diego temperatures I'd probably be dead! I'm trying to persuade my husband to seriously look into solar panels for hot water. Every little bit helps... know what you mean about huge energy bills. In our previous house our heat was from an electric forced air furnace! cha-ching!

That's very true...at 20 below you would have no choice but to use a furnace or heater. Believe-it-or-not there's some houses in San Diego that don't have heaters or furnaces...they're mostly close to the beach as it stay much milder there at night during the winter. Older houses have fire places...and most homes have a heater or furnace, which we're lucky we don't have to use very often in winter (last winter was kind of the exception).

I can't believe it's still 82ºF (28ºC) at 12:30 a.m. outside. In the house it's still a very hot 89ºF (32ºC), I'm roasting! There goes another horrible night's sleep.

I sympathize, but this is the coolest August I can remember! it has been so cool this summer that I'm dreading the winter. ...the next ice age?
when we lived in the far north, summer heat was limited to two or three weeks in July...a neighbour had a little too much wine after dinner and fell asleep on his patio...he awoke two hours later mosquito bitten beyond recognition...and that's when you know it's time to quit drinking wine with dinner...or MOVE! lol....we spent 12 years up there and summers were very short, until recently. The first El Nino gave them above zero temps on New Year's Eve!! The higher latitudes knew about global warming well before the rest of us!

That's so strange it's so cool up there. I thought the summers were very hot up there.

We're still absolutely dying from the heat here! It's going to stay hot for the foreseeable future. What's so strange is that the nights temps have been very hot. Typically, it cools down much more at night or early morning, which gives up some relief from the daytime heat.