Another heat post

I noticed on the seven day forecast tonight that it's all 100's. The casualties are stacking up. My poor zinnias are just about gone. The ones still alive look terrible. I have no tomatoes on any plant. I want to start my fall plants but I just don't think seedlings could take the heat, no matter how much water I gave them. Who would have thought that damping off would be slowly getting the plants out of the air conditioning and used to the heat? I thought it was supposed to be the other way around.




I found this little guy dead in the garden. As I use no insecticides I can only suppose he died of the heat. I think it's a Rhinocerus beetle as it has two horns, although it isn't like the ones I found as a kid. Although this is a good size beetle, I remember them as much larger and dark brown like a May beetle. He is in perfect condition, so went into a little box to put in my collection of odd little things. I so wish I could have seen it alive. I can easily spend an hour observing things like this. I can now only imagine how great it would have looked, a beetle this big, flying. I bet it would have made a great sound.

When we built our ponds, we made the middle pond where it was a little ways under the yard fence so that the deer and other animals would have a place to water. They are drinking so much now that it has to have water added every day. You can tell when the pond is low because there will be a deer standing there looking at the house and waiting for someone to come out and fill 'er up please. They seem to tolerate our presence more because they need that water so badly. I sure hope this heat wave breaks soon, not just for us, but also for all the animals that make our place such a wonderful place to live.