Our First Week of Summer
This last week, we experienced the hottest temperatures since living here and, in fact, some areas set new records! Before you feel sorry for us, though, know that although we would prefer it not get this hot, we all know how to deal with the heat. We all have air conditioned homes and cars and businesses are air conditioned so it is easy to escape. Also, because it is so dry here, even the smallest amount of shade can offer a little relief. You can tell who are locals because they are the ones standing in the shade of ANYTHING.
Some of us don’t give a second thought to the extreme heat because we LOVE living here! What we do instead is change our routine. For me, that means a “summer-time” schedule. Very early to bed and very early to rise. I go to bed at 8pm and I’m up at 4am. The mornings are more than tolerable so I can still garden and hike during the summer but I start at 4:30am. Our favorite hiking trails are just minutes from home and at higher elevation which allows for a couple of hours of exercise before it gets too hot.
This blog post features images from Sunday June 23rd through Sunday June 30th and will give you a glimpse of how I spent my time during this hot week.
June 23rd – Surprised by an Echinopsis Bloom in my garden.
June 23 – Prickly Pear fruit is ripening in my garden
June 24 – Super Moon setting over Browns Mountain
June 24 – Hiking on Browns Mountain
June 25 and 26 – Spent time compiling images for photo books
June 27th – Sun Spots give me an idea for an Alien Post!
June 27th – Some Photoshop Magic turns my sun spotted sunrise into an Alien image
June 27 – Encounter a Sonoran Whiptail after sunrise
June 27 – Discovered a granite Thunderbird farther down the trail
June 27th – When I got home, I discovered a Queen Chrysalis in one of my gardens!
June 28 -Another surprise bloom in my garden. This is a Hybrid Hedgehog
June 28th – Discover 4 Queen caterpillars on a single Desert Milkweed and decided to give them some shade
June 29 – Discovered a bloom on my recently planted Pipevine!
June 30 – Another sunrise as seen from Granite Mountain.
June 30 – Saguaros at Sunrise seen from Granite Mountain
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Love all your pictures! The cactus don’t mind the heat do they? lol I really love that snake too – it’s so long! And you are such a sweetie to shade your caterpillars, I hope they are thriving. Hot weather doesn’t put you off and those sunrises are splendid!
We have a week of hot and sunny weather coming but don’t laugh because hot for us is 30C (86F I think) so I shall be out doing my garden chores in the morning and watering late in the evening, and sitting in the shade beside my pond eating ice cream in the afternoon, probably 🙂 – and hopefully a trip to the coast!
By the way, we now have two 2 month old kittens…. :-))))) will tell all and share pics once I get some better than the blurs I have so far…. little tinkers do not stand still!
Thanks for your comment, Mandy! Yes…plants here are quite well adapted to the extreme temps. We have two main rainy seasons….summer and winter….but even then, we only get about 4-5 inches in the entire year so it’s mind boggling that the desert can be so green here with little to no water. Wanting to learn more about desert plants is why I went to desert landscaping school where I learned about their many interesting tactics for survival!
Don’t eat too much ice cream and please post kitten pics soon 🙂
Oh it’s lovely to see another little glimpse of your world all in one post and seeing how nature is using your garden as a home especially with a chrysalis. I’d really struggle with those temps as 24c is about as high as I like to work in. We’ve no air con so when the house gets hot it is really hard to sleep. But I live in Scotland so it’s quite rare for temps to get up beyond that … but we’re in for a hot spell over the next few days.
Thanks for commenting, Rosie! I think we have polar opposite conditions in our gardens so I agree, it’s fun to have peeks into other ones around the world 🙂
Nothing worse than trying to sleep in hot conditions so I hope your warm spell doesn’t last long!