It RAINED!!! a good steady soaking rain for about an hour today!!!
i wish it would rain here 
it is too hot to bare.
The Globe Thistle and Bee Balm are in blossom here in Chicago and normally they’re magnets for bees
but I haven’t seen any yet this year.
So far all I’ve seen are the flies coming over from my eastern neighbor’s yard. The flies breed on the dog poop over there (that his kids refuse to clean up because “its gross”).
The neighbor to my west (age 82) decided not to hand weed what isn’t grass in his yard this year. He’s taking a scorch the earth policy on anything that doesn’t look like grass. He laid the herbicide on so thick back by the garage that it killed an additional foot of vegetation to my side of the fence as well. The vegetation he killed were mostly day lilies and various mints.
Yeah, I know. I’m being such a whiner.
I really must move.
I don’t belong in this neighborhood.
I envy those of you who live in less polluted areas of this planet and have pretty landscapes to look out at. The air around here in the summer is a mixture of diesel exhaust and fabric softener.
ARGH! If I had one of my neighbors do that I would seriously consider using a big old stick to. . .. well, you get the idea. What an eedjit. Yeah, you need to move out to the country.
Mark
Weather is hot and dry here… With temps of 110 F and higher, it’s no fun being outside. Lows are at the most (or lowest I guess) around 85-90 F at night. Tis summertime in Phoenix, AZ. Only thing missing are the thunderstorms and rain, normally called the “Monsoon,” but as life goes on it’s more like the nonsoon… Meaning no rain, or very little. Oh, it hasn’t rained here since March.
Sounds like heaven! But isn’t it very crowded and expensive to live there?
Also, the US Weather Bureau disagrees with your hi’s and lo’s:
Monthly Normal and Record High and Low Temperatures
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Rec High °F 86 85 90 96 92 109 109 101 102 103 97 83
Norm High °F 65.4 66.3 67.4 70.1 71.2 74.4 76.7 78.7 78.2 75.4 71 66.4
Norm Low °F 40.8 44 46 47.6 50.5 53.9 57.3 58.4 56.6 51.6 44 39.9
Rec Low °F 26 25 32 36 38 42 49 47 43 36 30 20
Precip (in) 3.57 4.28 3.51 0.63 0.23 0.05 0.03 0.11 0.42 0.52 1.32 2.26
Source: USTravelWeather.com [1]
djm
I am so happy for you. Now I’ll be saying a prayer you get some more!!
I was just telling my son your story about the big snake that let you approach so close because it was so desperately thirsty. He thought that was cool…but sad too.
I know this is supposed to be a weather thread and not an apiculture thread, but…what kind of bees do you have? Did you mail-order them? I had a bee keeping course but that was a long time ago. We mail-ordered some bees as part of the class. We got “wimpy” ones, you know, so gentle you can just about work them bare handed, but not very productive.
They’ve some fairly active ones down south. Perhaps you could import some. 
djm
If anyone wants rain they can have some of ours. Feck knows what’s happened to our summer.
Global Warming is a bitch dog. We’re experiencing a bad drought in central Kentucky. We’re also almost to the point of being rationed on water, which sucks for me because I have a thousand fish tanks to take care of. I’ll just not shower.
Today while I was working on whistles, I listened to an episode of NPR’s Talk of the Nation Science Friday where they were discussing a technology for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The technology can actually work and be implemented at a reasonable cost. It’s the first time I’ve known about something that could really stop global warming that wouldn’t depend on some as yet not realized/realizeable technology.
Here’s the streaming audio link, if anyone’s interested:
http://www.npr.org/dmg/dmg.php?prgCode=TOTN&showDate=01-Jun-2007&segNum=2&mediaPref=RM
Then, we’ll talk about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Scrubbers exist to strip pollutants such as sulfur from smokestack emissions – could a carbon dioxide scrubber be built to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and help combat global climate change?
Rather encouraging news, I thought.
Best wishes,
Jerry
We’ve been gone to a festival in Bardstown KY all week.
When we got there, the surrounding countryside looked like late August instead of late June. EVERYTHING is brown and dying. Farmers are already talking about killing off livestock because they are afraid there’s going to be no hay for wintering over.
It rained somewhere almost every day, but it was VERY sporatic. It literally POURED down at the hotel on Monday evening - water inches deep in the street, and branches down all over. Our campground, which was about 7 miles from the hotel, was bone dry. One day it rained so hard at the school we were having classes it you couldn’t see out the windows - no rain at the hotel or the campground. Last night one campground was hit so hard tents were ripped out of the ground, but again, our campground had only a slight drizzle.
We’ve evidently had some rain here in Cincinnati, it still is dry - but nothing like middle Kentucky. If this keeps up, look for beef prices to go way down for a time, then to go way up because of over slaughter.
It tried to rain yesterday. The rain will fall down for about three or four minutes, rather heavily, and then stop and go back to being bone dry again. It’s a tease, really. We need it to pour down for a few hours, or overnight, to be restored back to our moisture level we normally have this time of year.
Are you saying Elvis lied? 
Kentucky rain keeps pouring down
And up ahead’s another town
That I’ll go walking through
With the rain in my shoes,
Searchin’ for you
In the cold kentucky rain,
In the cold kentucky rain.
A few years ago there was a series on Discovery channel narrated by Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder about climate change and alternate energy, etc. One of the devices they highlighted was a solar energy converter. They were concerned the design wouldn’t get off the ground because the thing took an outside source of energy to get started (a lot of energy), but once it was up and running, this thing would also pull CO2 from the air as a byproduct.
They also said that it would lower the air temperature around it a few degrees, and were concerned it wouldn’t be welcome in some places. I was thinking that a company with these machines could sell green energy credits to polluters and make more profit from pulling CO2 than from generating energy. I haven’t heard any more about the devices since then, but obviously its something real that can be done now.
djm
Thanks for the good thoughts Caroluna.
Sounds like KY is in the same shape we are. The patchy downpours that last only a very few minutes. Thankfully though, we now have had a decent rain and that has greened things up a bit already. 
I know of one man who’s pond went dry. He’s hauling water, but has already lost one steer to dehydration. He leases the pasture and the owner refuses to even pay part on digging a well-although he had no problem paying to have water put in his swimming pool because so much had evaporated!
Beef cattle prices at the market should go down the tubes but don’t look for cheap beef to show up on the grocer’s shelves- it never has so far. Cattle markets are always cyclical, going up for several years to a real high for a few, then with increased supply the market price will drop dramatically and hold for a year of two then start gradually going back up. The cycle is usually about 12 years. One year the prices were so low we kept almost all our heifers rather than sell them to feedlots for $.50 a pound. The next year when they started calving…not fun.. up at all hours of the night..(another reason I’m glad we don’t have cattle anymore)
It is a beautiful morning here. It is cool, no humidity, a clear blue sky, the river is calm, almost like glass.
Today is July 1st, and Canada Day, with Canadians celebrating 140 years of age. I am taking some newbie kayakers up the river to Windsor, so we can be on the river as the Canada Day parade proceeds down Riverside Drive.
We have had some hot humid days here but nothing to fret about, not like what is going on around us on the rest of the continent. Boring yes but boring is good at least here.
To my fellow Canadians. Happy Canada Day! Now whose got the beer?
Anstapa
Rain like stair rods!
As a lad said to me the other day as we were looking out the window “jaysus, ye wouldnt put a milk bottle out in that”!
Oh, look up ahead! It’s a Tim’s! This must be Canada! 
djm
I always thought that Tim’s was ONLY in Canada (growing up on the border like I did…the only time I ever saw a Tim’s was when I was in Ottawa or the surrounding areas). So imagine my surprise when I found out there was one in the town in Ohio where I lived. It was weird…I kept expecting the cashier to say “eh” to me or something 
They’ve been trying to break into the American market for the last couple of years, but they’d have to make the coffee much weaker. 
djm