Hosta "Big Daddy" Thanks, Karen!

They look very good together.

Im pretty sure thats Big Daddy, the blue one Lori. You have loads going on right now. We had a map on the news tonight...a map of all the fires raging in the USA and Canada. Really alarming. I hope you aren’t near any of them. I seem to remember you saying that there was a fire near you. Its very frightening to imagine.

I have to answer this one...they are more in control now but thousands of acres and peoples' houses burned. On the East coast we are suffering from a long drought. Our dailyness are pitiful and there is nothing but brown grass. Except for sprinkers... Most do not help that much. My sun garden looks like a desert.

Cottagekaren:

You're not kidding about all the fires here in California. There's so many right now burning. It's also been so horribly hot here!

Wells,

I can relate to the long drought. San Diego only had 3 1/2 inches or 88 mm of rain all last rainy season. I won't see any rain, most likely until November or December here in San Diego, CA.

Its desperately bad isn’t it. I tell you, when I saw that map, it was apocalyptic. :(

It's horrible! It's sad with all the destruction of the fires and all the extreme heat, drought! The Pacific Ocean off San Diego's coast here is even above normal at around 83ºF (28ºC) which is causing a tremendous amount of humidity. It's been miserably hot here for the last month.

And I am sitting here in my winter clothes!

Karen, things change so quickly, don't they? We had snow in April...and within three weeks we had a heat wave... now we're wearing sweaters! We have lost the water in our well...I can't even contemplate what we'll do now. Specialists on the way to check it out. I'm so worried.
Andy: ...here I am saying it again, but, I could not live in such a hot dry climate...I'd be dessicated! Hope things change for the better for you and with all the anomalies perhaps you can get some moisture without having to wait 'til November! I can't imagine ocean temps in the 80's. Swimming would not be refreshing.

Its as greay as November here, pouring rain and I have a winter sweater on and the central heating!

It's time for an "I predict".. so here it is: Karen: I predict that by the end of August you'll be roasting again. Andy will have early monsoons...and all those poor unfortunates all across the country won't see an end to to fires until September or October. There were a number of small fires started by lightening strikes when our bit of rainy weather started about 8 days ago... it's dry as it was before but rain and storms forecast for today, so hopefully that will have our wells and cisterns replenished. The lack of water scare with the well turned out to be a fuse failure and our well is fine. whew! It's been an interesting day, so far.

Cottagekaren,

I can't imagine being in a winter sweater! Yikes! I would die!!! lol! It's so darned hot here right now, and it's 10:00 p.m. I need to break down and turn on the expensive-running ac! I do wish it was pouring rain here...I would have a party! :>))

Lori:

I'm so glad to hear your well is fine. That would be a horrible feeling to have your well go dry.

It is very dry here; however, it's very hot and humid! UGH!

We are in monsoon season, now. Monsoon just mean the change in the winds, it doesn't mean rain. Although, typically the monsoonal flow will carry the huge thunderstorms from Mexico, which for the last week and especially these last three days have had severe thunderstorms over the mountains and deserts. We just typically receive the heat and humidity from the monsoonal flow.

This July in San Diego was the 5th hottest in 168 years of weather keeping records. It still didn't beat out 2006 which was the hottest on record for most cities throughout California.

Ha Lori...thank goodness your well is ok! :)

It's just weird! We had dark cloud and rumblings but no rain! we're drying up again and the wind carries the smoke of new fires. Nothing very close, thank goodness.
The electrical stuff we can deal with more easily than the extreme costs of replacing a pump or deepening our well!
I'm off to the bush to check out what sounded like a coyote convention up our hill. The poor turkeys!

Stay safe Lori! You don’t want to be mugged by a gang of wild dogs!

Still not sure what that was, Karen. No signs of any activity except the bark-in. The turkey poults are young at this time and not able to fly as readily as their parents.

Lori,

Wow! I didn't know you had coyotes up there. We have a lot of coyotes here. They've been a really big problem this year (more so than other years because of the big fires in eastern San Diego County). Cats and small dogs are always coyote food.

Andy: I immediately called Rufus and Ryot in from their morning foray. The coyotes have interbred with the gray wolves and foxes. We have a charming (?) combination of breeds as well as large cats and owls not usually native to our area. They've come to us to escape changes in the north. The owls keep the squirrel population under control.. One owl sat in a cedar near our back deck for hours and now the chipmunk who's lived under our deck all summer is suspiciously missing. They will take cats too, so I'm very cautious when letting the cat (and dog) in or out.

Wow! Quite a bit of wild life...I'm sure your have mouse there, also.

Do you have Mountain Lions? Mt. Lions and bob cats have become a huge problem in urban areas over the last twenty years. Did you read about the bicyclist that got killed by a Mt. Lion about two months ago in Oregon?

Hahahahaha I wrote the following after first reading your comment! Upon second reading I realized that you were referring to Moose! We had a young moose in our marshy area about 100 yards from our house. LOL...beautiful huge animals... not quite as much a problem as the mice!
Ugh! every year in late autumn I have to fend off a migration of mice from the fields. Since we have a cat (who is too well fed to deign to catch and eat mice) I don't use poisons. (one never knows when he might revert and eat a poisoned animal.) In the effort to control mice and spiders I've started cutting bouquets of spearmint and leave them in baskets in the basement. My own version of strewing herbs!. and must use the old fashioned, finger crunching traps. This strategy has evolved over the years... I'll let you know if it works! lol..
As to Mtn. Lions... the ministry of the env. has posted nature cam photos of a large puma in the Prince Edward County area just north of New York State, about 140-180 kms. away from us. We have deer herds in the same area that have probably attracted them.
From my family, when they lived in the west, (Vancouver Island) we have tales of being stalked by Mtn. Lions wmhile walking home at night from the neighbours farm. Interesting part was, the "stalked" did not know about the "stalker" at the time. He only discovered the tracks the next day! It followed him almost to his door!
It is our population exploding into their territory. So sad to see human encroachment...like in Borneo with the Orangutans.
When we came here my hub joked with the real estate agent. Said he wanted to live in an area where the population density was 2:1000 miles! LOL... not quite!