It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility — Yogi Berra, Major League Baseball catcher, manager, coach. (1925-2015)
The good Lord made us all outof iron. Then he turns up the heat to forge some of us into steel. — Marie Osmond, American singer, actress, author. (1959- )
My goodness, it’s been a long hot summer. All summer long there’s been heat advisories and warnings for extended periods. The heat indices have ranged from 100F degrees to 120F in parts of Mississippi. A note from WCBI says, “July 16, 2025, was likely the hottest day of the summer so far, with highs in the mid to upper 90s and a heat index as high as 110.” Remember the days when the “meter reader” came by your house to get the meter reading? The meter reader at the time stopped by my house to say, “You better check your mother around the corner. It’s going to be a hot one.” I told him I appreciated him and would certainly do so. I reported the suggestion to my mother who said, “No way I’m going to get hot. I’ve turned everything up as high as it would go.” Mother would not tolerate heat at all. She went down to the car lot and told the salesman, “I want an air conditioner with a little car around it.” That’s what she got.
August looks like it’s likely to have temperatures in the 90s and 80s, days of sun, clouds, rain, and storms. We might as well take it day by day as the saying goes, “it changes like the weather.” During July I did my best to water with hoses and also tote buckets to flowerpots. It took a lot to keep everything growing. Daily water features for birds and critters were filled. I still spent time on the porch with Wilhelmina, the hummingbirds, and a fan. Next was a chore to put out the bird feeders and the suet. I found a way to keep the feeders and suet from disappearing overnight along with the suet cage. Each night I took them inside and put them out the next morning. It’s working well and suet lasts a lot longer. There’s bound to be a lot of suet cages in the woods.
On a day last week Sam, the fisherman, left early to meet his buddy at the boat ramp. I stayed in bed until I heard a loud rumbling noise that turned out to be thunder. Sam and his buddy text they had pulled back to the ramp and waited. Neither one of us got any rain.
The little lake is covered with scum; there’s no rain and no flow. The fancy name is “Biofilm.” It means a thin slimy film of bacteria that adheres to the surface. It’s a common occurrence, especially in stagnant or slow-moving water and can manifest as scum or film on the surface. It’s not pretty but once the rain returns, all will be well.
Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].
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