Too Hot to Handle

It is 3.30 pm and I am wilting away wondering how on earth I am ever going to make it through the next 4 months when we hopefully may start to have some cooler weather.  I say hopefully because this year we honestly skipped winter and went from autumn to spring/summer temperature wise.  All the usual signs of winter were around, leaves fallen, grass dying off, no rain....but our temperatures stayed  in the high 20's throughout this time and come 'springtime' they soared to the low 30's.  Now in November we are in the high 30's, close to 40!!!!!!!  Give a girl a break please....we are supposed to glow in summer not be reduced to a pool of sticky sweat.  Maybe if we had a swimming pool I wouldn't be one to complain as much as I seem to be doing these days, but alas our swimming pool lives on our smallholding almost 700km away in KZN and alas not here.  The beautiful summer rain storm we had just a few short weeks ago is a distant memory...if anyone came to visit today and looked at how our green grass shooting from the  rain drenched  soil has been scorched to a brittle brown crunch under our feet, they wouldn't believe that day bar for the photo's we have to prove it.

I remember as a child we would chant:  "rain, rain, go away, come back another day"....now I am changing the words to "rain, rain, come today, please stay here for another day"....The African sun beats down on us from early morning to late afternoon, drying our washing hanging on the line within minutes of it being pegged up.  The horses make their way to the water trough many times in the day, not moving too far away, but rather seeking refuge under the wide boughs of the Acacia tree.  The chickens don't even cluck and the mother hen doesn't hide her chicks under her widespread wings anymore as they lie next to her rather than under her in the shade of the coop.  The dogs have no energy to get up and bark at the cows lazing next to the fence, but watch them with half open eyes and barely utter a 'woof' in their direction.  As for Smokey and Rolo...well Rolo finds the coolness of the brick wall of the front verandah sufficient to keep her temperature low while Smokey lays sprawled out under the ceiling fan on the lounge carpet.  Me....I am sitting in the  lounge, two fans blowing, in shorts and a T-shirt, listening for the slightest rumblings of a thunder storm somewhere in the distance and hoping with all my might that the wind may blow it this way.....

Temperature and humidity in the bird room...