God Bless Willis Carrier

It's still hot!  And that's what all the puppies look like at my house right now.  This is our 4th day straight of excessive heat warnings and it doesn't look like that will end until early next week.  Thank goodness!  It's so hot that the girls are laying hard boiled eggs!  *ba da BOOM!*

 97 degrees at 10 p.m.  tonight.  This does not bode well.

I hadn't been out more than 5 minutes on my way to water the garden and chickens and I was sweating like I'd stepped out of a sauna.  All the rain that we got late last week has now evaporated and the ground is hard as a rock. I thought I was going to have to use dynamite to get the garlic out of the ground tonight.  As it was, I broke a hand spade.

So, with this heat, we are watering pretty much everyday to keep the tomatoes from cracking.  The rest of the garden actually looks really good considering.  The cabbage heads are coming along nicely.  No more problems with bugs eating the leaves after I sprayed with Bonide Bt (it's organic!)

The watermelons are blooming and starting to stretch their legs, and our first spaghetti squash is starting to turn yellow.  We could pick it now at about 8 inches long, but I'm going to wait for it to turn.

One thing that is funny is the stevia plants.  They didn't like it outside, so I brought them in to water them in the sink and they LOVE it there.  Love the wet and the cooler temps, I guess.  I don't have the heart yet to kick them out but they will eventually need to find a new home.  Maybe in a window sill somewhere.

Stevia is really interesting.  You can pop the leaves right into your mouth and they taste like sugar.  They're a great natural way to flavor your tea, you can bake with them, etc.  You can dry the leaves and use them later.  A very cool plant!  I think I may post some more about it over the weekend.

Well, I need to go pay some bills and get organized for the weekend.  Since it's so hot outside and J. took care of the mowing last night, we'll be working on inside projects all weekend. 

Oh, and who's Willis Carrier?  The inventor of the electric air conditioner.   He's A-OK in my book.

Stay cool, my friends!

I'm sharing this with this week's Tuesday Garden Party.