Hot and getting hotter. Text and photos © Northview Dairy
It is just too darned hot and dry here in the valley. "Maybe" clouds drift smugly across the brassy blue of the August sky lining up in sorrowful rows. They promise rain, but don't deliver. Thunderheads build and loom and then subside into puffy cumulous. They are merely stormcloud wannabes.

We are going to have to start watering 16 young heifers that are spending the summer out on the hill behind the house. Normally the creek there flows year round. Sometimes it roars down the hill in vigorous spate. Sometimes it meanders by, languorously slipping between its rocky banks. This summer it is reduced to a few stagnant puddles languishing in the shadier corners of the woods. The young stock still look fine, but it would be better for them to have a steady source of cool, clean water, so we will set out hoses tomorrow. We haven't used the watering trough out there in years, but it is still functional enough anyhow.

I planted a yellow lilac bush yesterday and a few irises today. It is incredible how dry and hard the ground is. A hole dug to the depth of the shovel blade uncovered no moisture at all, just Sahara-dry, hard, clay and sand. I filled the hole with water and had to wait half an hour for it to dissipate. We may get a few showers tonight due to a cold front passing through. I sure am hoping. Somehow no matter how disastrous the weather turns out to be we always seem to muddle through somehow. I am sure we will this year too.